wwp@yahoogroups.com:
Re: First edition of Diversity is online
G. Donald Bain 2009-Apr-08 20:34:00
On Apr 8, 2009, at 12:58 PM, Serge Maandag wrote:
> I also noticed that Don, just as in his previous entry, has managed to
> capture some beautiful colors again. Would you care to share your
> secret
> with us, Don?
>
> The clouds seem not saturated at all, which makes me believe you
> used HDR.
> The wood and bushes have a warm glow as if the panorama was shot
> during
> the golden hour, but I see no sun on the horizon. And boy, the water
> color
> does add to the excitement :)
Serge,
Thank you very much! A few comments, since you ask...
Yes, I shot five exposures of each frame, one stop apart, stitched to
hdr format in PTGui then tone mapped in PhotoMatix. Without this half
the sky would be blown out. As it turned out, five stops was not quite
enough for the brightest clouds. I don't have a lot of experience at
tone mapping, a real expert might have been able to do better.
The sun was high in the sky, but a bit warmer (color temperature) than
usual because of dust in the air.
The wood was a nice warm weathered tone, typical of pine after years
in the desert sun. I didn't do as thorough a job retouching the tripod
shadow as I could have, never enough time.
The most important thing for me was to accurately reproduce the color
of the water the way I remembered it. I think I got it just about
right. Too bad the pupfish are too small to see (only 2 cm long)
because they were an iridescent blue.
If you look carefully you will see a lot of double-imaging in the tree
branches against the sky. Some of course is inevitable with five
exposures, but this was a special case. The wind that day was gusting
up to 60 mph (100 kph) and the twigs were vibrating like tuning forks!
I took some dramatic panos in a dust storm the day before, I'll post a
link when they are ready.
Don