Back in town..

Daddy Narayanan has been traveling over the last few weeks, busy with work.

We also did some travel as a family to Reno and back. Today we spent a few hours in San Francisco visiting the Ripley's Believe it or not, followed by ice cream at our favorite joint..

The skies were a bright red, white and blue and the lights had just come on.. could not resist an attempt to make a composite HDR image..

Definitely going to buy this Photomatix software next time there is a discount coupon!

More photos of trips and funny events around the house later..



ps. The image was a composite of three images shot with self timer by placing camera on a table in the restaurant using my iPhone under the lens to lift it up..

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The kids in HDR..

Human subjects are difficult to do HDR using bracketed images(the overall Google opinion seems to be that). Most Human subject HDR images are from tone mapping with single images.

This was an attempt to do bracketed images using high ISO and lower f numbers but have the shutter speeds still short enough to pull off three shots in rapid succession before the kids moved..

We are almost there..

Thanks to my wonderful subjects who pulled in a deep breath then let it go and off we went

click
click
click

These days the weekends seem to fly! Well we still have another day to ourselves...



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Navarathri Golus - 2010

This year's nine day celebration went by real fast. There was a three day time lapse with heavy pain killers that made it look like a six day festival.

The previous years golu collections are in this link. I know a lot of folks look for how their golus have evolved over time using the blog posts. Thank you all for allowing me to chronicle the fantastic doll displays.

The spirit of this festival is not in the doll displays. It is watching your kids have fun. Go to every one of their friends houses, play, eat sundal, dress up, sing, dance, collect goody bags and just enjoy being a kid!

A few photographs that capture this essence

The elaborate jewelry that kids wear with great love..




The joy of comparing goody bags..




or the joy of making photography really challenging for daddy (had to chop grandma's face because she was not amused by the kids making the photo session difficult!)




Now for this years golus. The HDR ones are obvious (most shots are a composite of 3 images std , +2 eV, -2 eV)and you can see the difference it makes.





































This year was fun. Next year as the golus morph in shape, size and color... will have a different way to capture the displays.. maybe go B&W to create that 1980's nostalgia? Go take close up of dolls in a set instead of the entire display?

Your ideas are always welcome!



Note to self: Just like we do an oil change or scheduled maintenance on the van two weeks before any long weekend for an anticipated road trip, always get your dental checkup two weeks before navrathri! It is a bad idea for Sundar to be left out in Sundal season..



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Golus are the perfect subject for HDR

See this one below!



Note, if you take a picture with a flash and capture this really good golu with a wide angle set to 18mm, you will not get the details in the shadows. You can even see the shadows of the beads in each step with the HDR image..

Loving it so far..


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HDR with kids

HDR photos involve getting multiple exposures and combining them into one photograph and then tone mapping them to get details in bright and dark areas.

At least that is my one line understanding of the concept.

The best results seem to be for images shot in early morning or early evening where shadows play a big part of the shot and there are possibilities for increased hues and color saturation. Works best with monuments in the foreground, brick houses, waves etc.. you get the idea?! No, go see these photos..

You usually do not see photos of people in HDR because it is difficult for the subject to stay still while taking three shots (especially ones with long exposures).

The kids are extremely co-operative and have posed for >10000 photographs put together . .

So, here is a first attempt. Downloaded a trial version of PHotomatix to do this. Very very impressed with the software (better than the free version of FDR tools), but doubt the Mrs. will allow the real version to be purchased with the 99$ price tag. Nevertheless, a great tool to understand HDR better..




Suggestions and ideas for the kid-HDR learning part 2 are welcome!


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Two plus two plus two equals...

Pumpkins + some time available on a gloomy Saturday afternoon + new lens = HDR photos!!

High Dynamic Range photos, created by superimposing multiple shots of same object with a constant exposure time but with different f stop settings to get fine details on over exposed and underexposed areas of picture.

If that was all information overload, the idea is to create a photo that closely captures what the human eye can see. (It also adds a depth perception)

A glass globe on our dining table (composite image from 4 images 1/8 s exposure f2.5, f3.2, f4.5, f6.3)




and the pumpkin, a composite of 5 images with 1 second exposure and f11.0, f8.0, f5.6, f4.0, f2.8




Okay, time pass is over..

Off to do more serious things!

Wishing all those who celebrate a "Happy Hallllllloooooweeeeen!"





ps. Updated globe..






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Bloom

We have a new cluster flower blooming in our front yard. There was no breeze and the stalk held steady enough to be used for multiple shots in sequence.

This is the best superimposed HDR image that is blog worthy, given the sway and the sun setting behind the flower.

Now that the camera has graduated from still objects to slightly moving objects, more exploring will be done.




Tomorrow brings us new subjects..


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More photos from around the house

Playing with the software, realized that there is an alignment feature to align each picture to a reference to capture the light variation without increasing the blur.

In spite of using a tripod and taking the individual images in self timer mode, the few seconds it takes to change the exposure setting and clicking the shutter somehow moves the center of the image by a few pixels and that is enough to change the quality of the picture.

Found this trying to image a cabbage rose in our front yard.








Went back and zoomed in on a single rose in the flower vase and it came out crystal clear with fantastic detail even inside the shadows within the petals.







Original plan to go to take a picture of the golden gate didn't come through. Will have to try that another day..

For now, I am like a kid in a candy store.. so many possibilities with the same camera...


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A bouquet of roses - HDR Photography

Yesterday, our friends got us a bouquet of roses for the pooja. They are really beautiful roses and have a rich variety of colors.

The photo crazy idiot that I am, started taking pictures of the flowers. The colds were captured but somehow the depth of the roses were not coming out on the JPG's.

Then thought of using the HDR software and shot a series of pictures with the tripod and set it to a 2.4 second exposure with a range of aperture settings from

4.0,4.5, 6.0, 6.3, 7.1, 8.0, 9.0, 10.0, 11.0, 13.0, 18.0, 20.0

and then using the software superimposed select pictures to get a High Dynamic Range (HDR) image from this subset.

Sure enough, the image takes on more depth and gets the bright and dark ares of the roses to have the same amount of detail..

Here are two such composites.

One with almost all of the aligned images..



and one with a smaller subset..




Two realizations at the end of the photo editing process.

1. HDR is the closest I have seen a photograph capture what we see with our eyes.

2. Our eyes are way ahead! Way way way way ahead than any camera or software. God is the most brilliant camera maker! He provides us fantastic subjects like roses and fantastic images to our brain, courtesy of some amazing cameras, our eyes.

The fun continues tonight. Planning to go to my all time favorite, most photographed architectural subject in the bay area tonight..

No marks for guessing what that is!


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HDR attempt 1 - stone egg on granite

A rock that my friend Maria gave me a long time ago for my 25th Birthday.. has always been lying around in my shoebox... realized that it had the same color as our granite countertop!

This is a composite of 6 shots with f4.0 to f9.0

there will be more subjects and more pictures by sunday.


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