Camera: Nikon D2X
Exposure: 4.7
Aperture: f/11.0
Focal Length: 70 mm
ISO Speed: 200
Exposure Bias: 0 EV
Flash: No Flash

How I got this shot:

The camera was on a tripod in “Bulb” mode with a cable release. As the show progressed, I watched the trajectory of the rockets and got an “average” of likely explosion spots, and set my compositions accordingly.

I set the ISO to 200 to get a little more speed while keeping the noise to a minimum, and the aperture to f/11 to get some good depth of field. I opened the shutter manually just before the explosions and held it open until the light trails faded, about 3-5 seconds on the average, constantly checking the LCD for composition and exposure.

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Happy Holidays! Mmmm, smell that cinnamon and pine.

My first attempts at an HDR shot using studio lighting. I used a 4-shot bracket (+/- 10 units – approx. 20-50) to create an HDR image.

Photographed with a Canon EOS 5D and Canon EF 100mm f/2.8 USM Macro Lens. Exposure of ISO 500, f/13.0 for 1/60 with varying strengths of light output. Lit with a single soft box on 300 W/S monolight and a white semi-circular reflector.

Processed in Photomatix Pro 3.2 with post-processing in Adobe Lightroom 2.5 and Photoshop CS3.

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Camera: Nikon D80
Exposure: 0.05 sec (1/20)
Aperture: f/2.0
Focal Length: 35 mm
ISO Speed: 1000
Exposure Bias: 0 EV
Flash: No Flash

How I got this shot

I love my 35mm f/1.8 prime lens. No, it doesn’t zoom–I use my legs for that–but it does give me some great bokeh.

For this shot, I placed the stuffed snowman on the floor. I then placed myself on the floor, so that I was at the same level–actually, looking up at the snowman. I then adjusted my aperture from 1.8 to 2.0, as I’ve read many articles that suggest you get a sharper shot when you step down from your camera’s maximum aperture.

I took a few test shots and made the following adjustments. I increased my ISO to the point that I could get enough light while still hand-holding the camera. You can see that I ended up at an ISO of 1000 and an exposure time of 1/20 second. Any higher ISO and I risked too much noise in the pic. Any slower shutter and I risked not being able to hold my camera still enough to avoid blurring.

Lastly, I positioned the snowman about 6 feet from the Christmas tree. The combined aperture and depth of field gave me that pretty “bokeh” effect on the lights. They were out of focus and hence, you get that flared look.

Processing

Not much processing in Apple’s Aperture software. I boosted the vibrancy and contrast a little, but not much else. The only other thing I did was to clone one of the lights and paste it twice on the right of the picture. I did this because I realized that I had a small black area with no lights. To keep the image balanced, I added these lights. That’s about as sophisticated as I get with “photoshop” (although I actually used Aperture’s clone feature).

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One morning in November, I looked out the window to see what promised to be a gorgeous sunrise. Fortunately, my Nikkor 14-24mm lens was already on my camera, a Nikon D700, so all I had to do was grab the tripod and run out the door. I set up just behind the house and saw the bright clouds reflected in the windows of the house, giving a warm golden glow to the stone work.

One of the primary requirements for good HDR (High Dynamic Range) images is a tripod. Even if the normal exposure could be hand held, you still need to be sure that every image in the bracketed series will line up perfectly. Photomatix Pro, the software I use to process HDR images, can do a decent job of lining up images, but the result is often less than desirable if a tripod was not used – resulting in what appear to be out of focus images.

Other important considerations are:

* aperture priority (to have a consistent depth of field),
* auto-ISO off (set the lowest ISO possible to reduce noise in the images),
* and manual focus (to make sure the focal point doesn’t change from one image to the next).
* Some also recommend setting the white balance to something other than Auto. I always shoot in RAW, and this has not been an issue. If it were, the white balance of RAW images can always be changed with software.

So, I shot 7 bracketed images with 1EV spacing between each one, at an aperture of f/5.6 and the lens at 14mm.

After importing the images into Adobe Lightroom, I immediately exported them to Photomatix Pro. Photomatix default settings usually provide a very good starting point but optimum results will normally require tweaking some of the settings. In this case, I left the strength at 100%, but reduced the Luminosity slightly because the default setting was too bright.

Next, I increased the Smoothing setting slightly to get rid of the halo around the house – this is sometimes introduced by HDR processing and can add impact to some images but often results in an unnatural looking effect.

Finally, I reduced the Micro-smoothing to zero to retain texture in the clouds and stone work on the house and then saved the image back in to Lightroom for some minor tweaks.

The highlights were still a little too bright so I used Lightroom’s Highlight Recovery slider to reduce those slightly. I almost always add some Contrast and Clarity – it seems to add a bit of a sharpening effect. Then I normally increase the Vibrance, especially if there is some blue sky, to deepen and darken that sky. Finally, I’ll sharpen slightly and and do some noise reduction to make sure the image is as smooth and noise free as possible.

Producing HDR images is a lot of fun and can give some added dimension to your portfolio – so give it a try!

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Camera: Nikon D60
Exposure: 0.002 sec (1/500)
Aperture: f/5.6
Focal Length: 55 mm
ISO Speed: 100
Exposure Bias: 0 EV
Flash: No Flash

I took this photo late on a sunny and windy afternoon of my summer holidays spent in Sardegna (Italy).

Inspiration came from some pictures taken by a deviant user (cycoevolution) I’m following. I choose to use a pretty short exposure time in order to achieve this frozen-sand effect and an aperture of 5.6, wide enough to produce a blurry background and a nice zone of focus.

While shooting I was lying down prone and this helped me on keeping my camera in a safe and static position. In post production I used Lightroom to add a little bit of contrast, just to make the picture more dramatic.

Export done with Picasa 3.0

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Waiting to pick up Chinese food tonight so I ran across the street to this place and shot a photo. I was in this shop a couple of months ago and all I can think about is that movie Grumpy Old Men. The guys that work here are actually really nice but it just reminds me of the 50’s or something. Anyway, back to the weekend!

Where
Bennington, VT

The Shot
Nikon D90, Sigma 10-20mm, bracket 3 exp (-2,0,+2) using a tripod

Photomatix
Generated HDR using Photomatix, tonemapped with Details Enhancer

Photoshop CS3
Layer mask of curves to slightly increase the contrast
Layer mask of decrease saturation (reds) to reduce the tone of the sign
Layer mask of levels to correct the overall shot
Blended some areas to correct the red color cast
Dup layer to apply high pass filter @ 60% to sharpen things up a bit

Noise Reduction
Neat Image Trial Version

You
I would always appreciate any suggestions you may have. I don’t always know the best way to adjust things in Photoshop so any areas of improvement are welcomed.

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By Peter Liu

Camera: Nikon D2X
Exposure: 0.2 sec (1/5)
Aperture: f/16.0
Focal Length: 29 mm
ISO Speed: 100
Exposure Bias: 0 EV
Flash: No Flash

How I got this shot:

This panorama was created with four exposures on a tripod with a 3-stop ND grad set on the horizon. I used the sun as a reference point and simply panned from left to right. I had to do this quickly, as the sun was moving and I wanted it to occupy the same relative spot in all the frames. I used an ExpoDisc to set the white balance beforehand and locked the focus and exposure.

From Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 2.5, I loaded the four frames directly into Photomerge in Adobe Photoshop CS4 and processed the panorama using the default settings. After flattening the resulting image, I used the Ruler Tool to straighten the horizon (I didn’t have time to make sure everything was level during the shoot) and did the final crop.

Then I saved the image as a TIFF, closed it and reopened it in Camera RAW, so that I could adjust the overall exposure and use Fill Light to open the shadows in the rocks. I saved the image again and imported it back into Lightroom, where I manage all my photos. As a finishing touch, I burned in the edges slightly using the Vignettes feature in Lightroom.

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Camera: Nikon D90
Exposure: 30
Aperture: f/25.0
Focal Length: 62 mm
ISO Speed: 200
Exposure Bias: 0 EV
Flash: No Flash

How I Did It

I used an old double pole cloth hanger (google it) in a dark room to hold a little LED construction I made. The LED construction consists of 5 small LEDs of different colors and a detachable battery pack with an on/off switch.

The lamp is hanging from the cloth hanger. On the ground I put a 1×1m mirror. In an angle of about 60 degrees I put my camera on a tripod, facing the mirror and focusing on the little LEDs reflection.

I switched off the light in the room, set my shutter speed to 30 seconds and put the LEDs in a circular motion. As soon as they were spinning evenly, I switched on the LEDs via the battery pack switch, let them rotate for a short while and switched the lights off again. 30 seconds are a long time, you will probably need about 10 seconds where the LEDs are actually turned on. You have to pay attention that you switch off the LEDs in about the same position where you switched them on so that there is almost no telling where there is the beginning or end in your picture.

It was really fun taking those pictures and it is an easy setup with the “wow-effect” many of us are looking for

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Camera: Canon EOS 40D
Exposure: 0.004 sec (1/250)
Aperture: f/11.0
Focal Length: 11 mm
ISO Speed: 200
Exposure Bias: 0 EV

About
I had the day off of work today so that gave me a little extra time to mess around with the camera. During the holiday season it seems like everything is a little crazier than usual so I thought something like this would be fitting.

The shot is composed of images for each item and the background shot separately with the same lighting setup. Everything was merged in photoshop with some curves adjustments and sharpening for web.

Setup:
ISO 200
1/250 s
f 11
11mm

Gear:
Canon 40D, Sigma 10-20, Manfrotto Tripod, Canon 430 EXII, Vivitar 285 HV, Gorillapod, Yangnuo Triggers, dirty laundry.

Strobist
Canon 430 exII placed in lamp (right edge of frame). Vivitar 285hv on Gorillapod stuck to top of door (left edge of frame). Each flash was at 1/2 power and aimed into the corner of the room. Triggered with Yangnuo 2.4 wireless triggers.

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Camera: Nikon D300
Exposure: 0.002 sec (1/641)
Aperture: f/6.3
Focal Length: 10 mm
ISO Speed: 200

How
3 exposures, -2, 0, and +2 using a Nikon D300 w/ Sigma 10-20mm Wide Angle

Process
Photomatix Pro for tonemapping
Photoshop CS4, made duplicate layer from original, adjusted Levels, adjusted Curves, adjusted Hue/Saturation, and used Unsharp Mask to sharpen a tad.

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