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Tag Archive for Photos

naturephoto | January 2, 2011

Winter scenes at Mer Bleue

Here are photos taken at a recent outing at Mer Bleue Bog in Ottawa.

Winter tree silhouette against blue orange sky-HDR

This photo is made up of 3 images that were merged with Photoshop CS5 HDR Pro. To put the finishing touches on the HDR tone mapped image, the file was saved as a tiff file in Photoshop and then opened with Adobe Camera Raw 6.3. If you’re like me and like making the bulk of your photo adjustments using Adobe Camera Raw, did you know that you can make use of all those familiar adjustments on your TIFF or JPG files as well. This is a great way to make final color/contrast adjustments to your HDR images.

Adobe Camera Raw (ACR) Tip: You can set ACR to open JPG and TIFF images and be able to make use of the same adjustments that you use against your raw files.

From Adobe Bridge, to specify Camera Raw preferences, choose Edit > Camera Raw Preferences (PC) or Adobe Bridge CS5 > Camera Raw Preferences (Mac). At the bottom of the dialog there are two menus under the JPEG and TIFF Handling headings. These two menus have the same impact on their respective files formats.

This is how the TIFF selections impact the TIFF files when doing a double-click on these files in Bridge.

Disable TIFF support: You will not be able to open TIFF files using Adobe Camera Raw. This is the default setting.

Automatiacally Open TIFF with settings: TIFF files which have previously been modified using ACR will be automatically open with ACR, and TIFF files which have not been modified with ACR will be open by Photoshop

Automatically Open all supported TIFFs: All TIFF files will be automatically open using ACR unless they contain layers in which case they will open in Photoshop.

Category: Photo Techniques, Photos, Photoshop | Tags: ACR, Adobe Camera Raw, HDR, Landscape, nature, Ottawa, Photos, Photoshop, Photoshop CS5, post-processing

naturephoto | October 11, 2010

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Fall Colors at Mer Bleue with HDR

I was out catching some landscape photos of fall colors at Mer Bleue Conservation area in Ottawa. I decided that I would shoot some photos to process them as HDR.

HDR horizontal fall landscape Mer Bleue Conservation Area Ottawa

What is HDR? HDR stands for High Dynamic Range. As the name indicates, an HDR photo is a photo that has increased dynamic range compared to a regular photo. In a conventional digital photo, the sensor’s capture abilities cannot match what your eyes sees in terms of contrast ratio. Your eyes/brain can easily adjust and see the full range of information within a scene. For example, in a scene where you have part of the scene in full sunlight and part in full shade, your eyes/brain will adjust and allow you to see the part of the scene lit by the sun and also the part of the scene that is in the shade. Unfortunately you camera cannot capture that full range of information. You will have to compromise and decide between one of:

1) Exposing your image for the sunlit portion of the scene and loose information detail in the shaded portion of your scene.

2) Exposing your image for the shaded portion of the scene and loose detail in the sunlit portion of the scene.

That is where HDR processing comes to the rescue. It allows merging multiple images that were captured at different exposure settings into a single photo covering a larger dynamic range that can look more like the scene you wanted to capture.

Note that many camera models are now being released with the ability to capture in-camera HDR images. Meaning that multiple exposures are taken when you take the picture and they are processed in-camera. However the technique that is explained here can be used with any camera that allows exposure adjustments because the image processing is done on a computer.

There are two main steps in making HDR photos: Capture and Post-processing.

Category: Photo Techniques, Photos, Photoshop | Tags: HDR, landscape photography, mer bleue, Ottawa, Photo Techniques, photo tips, Photos, Photoshop CS5, post-processing

naturephoto | September 6, 2010

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Smalltown rodeo photography

Smalltown rodeos are great for photography. Because they are smaller, you can get closer to the action more easily than at a larger rodeo. I went to a rodeo on a late August Sunday afternoon in St-Albert, a short drive outside Ottawa Ontario. This event was scheduled through the Rawhide Rodeo Company and was part of the St-Albert Curd Festival.

Cowgirl on the run

Although the shooting conditions looked less than ideal because it was a bit rainy. The overcast sky actually provided good even lighting as opposed to the harsh/contrasty lighting conditions of a sunny day. Less light however means shooting at higher ISOs than on a sunny day. All photos were shot with a Canon 40D with a 100-300 5.6L lens. Most photos were shot at ISOs ranging between 400-800 in order to be able to shoot at acceptable shutter speeds for this slow lens. In order to help with stability, I used a monopod. The monopod helps to get better panned shots as some of the included shots

In order to protect the camera and lens I made myself a protective cover using a large Ziploc bag and an elastic band. This worked well because the rain was quite light. As with any rain cover however, it works better when your lens is an internally focusing lens. In this case, the lens was not an internally focusing lens, so focusing caused the plastic bag to twist with focus which can prevent achieving the right focus…

One of the problems with shooting this type of event is getting a good backgroud. Using a fast shutter speed and freezing the action would mostly yield photos with a subject having very little definition with respect with the background. The subject would blend in with the background. In order to prevent having clear views of spectators as a background, I like to use a panning technique to get a relatively clear image with a blurred background.
Read more

Category: Photo Techniques, Photos, Photoshop | Tags: ACR, Adobe Camera Raw, Canon 40D, Content Aware, Panning, panning photography, Photo Techniques, Photos, Photoshop CS5, post-processing, Rodeo, slow shutter

naturephoto | August 19, 2010

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Canon announces Powershot S95 compact digital camera

Canon announced the release of the Powershot S95 today. This is an updated version of the excellent Powershot S90 compact digital camera released last year. Read my S90 mini review here.

Here is a short list of new features of the S95 compared to the S90:

- 720p HD video (1280 x 720 pixels @ 24 frames per second) .
- Mini HDMI connector to connect directly to High Definition TV Monitor.
- Hybrid IS (Improved Image Stabilization technology).
- Multiple new shooting modes including a High Dynamic Range mode.

Visit the Canon website for full details: click here

Category: Gear | Tags: Camera, Canon, Photos

naturephoto | April 27, 2010

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Canon PowerShot S90 mini review

I had the chance to spend a few days in PEI last weekend and took the opportunity to take a few photos. I was traveling light so I only brought my Canon PowerShot S90 point and shoot camera.

Canon PowerShot S90

A few words on the PowerShot S90; I really like this little camera. While many photographers rave about the Canon Gxx series of cameras, I find that they are compact but not truly pocket cameras as the S90 is.

Here are some of the nice features of the Canon PowerShot S90:

Same over-sized low light sensitivity 10.0 Megapixel sensor coupled with Digic 4 image processor as the Canon G11!

Raw file support which is rare for such a small compact camera.

f/2.0-4.9 28-105mm equivalent Image Stabilized lens

Programmable Control ring which allows quick control of programmed feature which can allow you to control one of Aperture, ISO, Exposure Compensation, White Balance, Manual Focus, Lens zoom step

Advanced features such as: AEB (Auto Exposure Bracketing), FEB (Flash Exposure Bracketing), Exposure Compensation, Flash Exposure Compensation,P + Tv + Av + M modes,

3.94 x 2.30 x 1.22 inches (100.0 x 58.4 x 30.9mm), Approx. 6.17 oz (175g) camera body only

Being a small compact camera it is expectedly not fast enough to shoot action, flash is not powerful, etc.

The only feature that I am disappointed with is the macro focusing abilities which keeps hunting for focus.

Overall I would highly recommend this camera for someone wanting a true pocket camera with advanced features. It won’t give you the photo quality of a DSLR, but because you can carry it in your pocket at all times, it will allow you to get some shots you would otherwise miss! This is the ideal bring everywhere pocket camera for times you are not bringing along your camera bag with DSLR and lenses with you.

Here are a few sample pictures taken with the PowerShot S90 and some Photoshop/ACR processing descriptions. Unless indicated otherwise all photos captured at ISO 80:
Read more

Category: Gear, Photoshop, Reviews | Tags: ACR, Adobe Camera Raw, Camera, Canon, Canon PowerShot S90, PEI, Photos, Photoshop, plugin, PowerShot, RAW, Topaz Adjust

naturephoto | March 23, 2010

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Save on photography magazine subscriptions

You can save a few dollars on some photography magazine subscriptions through Zinio.
Zinio allows you to subscribe to magazines in electronic format and save compared to regular magazine subscription prices.

Popular Photography regular subscription price: $12.95 / Zinio $10.00 for 6 issues.

Category: Reviews | Tags: American Photo, Photos, Popular Photography, Shutterbug, Zinio

naturephoto | September 12, 2009

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Bonsai trees

This weekend, the Ottawa Bonsai Society was holding it’s annual display. The event was held at the Japanese embassy in Ottawa, Ontario. You can visit their website at: www.ottawabonsai.org

There were some beautiful specimens on display. Here are some samples.

Photos captured with the iPhone 3Gs and processed with the iPhone PhotoForge application.