SuKai Loc: California

I was practicing at the house with different settings and shots. This is a shot of our fence with the grape vines which are growing there. They sure make good hedges and are I think they make good subjects HDR. Time was about 6pm when the sun was shining directly on them.

I have included the original -0- exposure of the 3 bracketed photos and my end result. I tried a few different things, I set my camera to shoot with the timer so I don't have to touch it, and I turned my Image Stabilizer off. I am hoping that will help with the focus.

Original at 0


Final Picture

conkerwood

You are certainly getting there very quickly, this is a clear improvement on what you have done before. I hadn't thought of it but you have certainly persuaded me that grapevines are a good HDR topic and I can't wait to find one to have a go. Using tripod and turning off stabilisation to reduce vibration is the way to go. Processing works well though the sky is a little grungy. If you using Photomatix you need to adjust the micro smoothing up to reduce this. Alternatively denoise in PS will improve it. Only real issue with pic is depth of field. HDR doesn't usually deal kindly with OOF areas. If you look at your pic you can see that the only area really in focus is the centre twig area, everything else is a little soft moving to quite soft in the background. Don't know what fstop you used but would suggest you go back to same spot at the same time of day in the same light but step back a little, larger fstop number and get your pics. Process in exactly the same way (but if Photomatix then play with micro smoothing.) Then move into PS or whatever you use, denoise and sharpen. Then crop back to the same size as the pic you posted. Then compare the results.

I am really enjoying your work.

BTW I have been on a motorbike once in my life and was scared silly, but I get what you are saying about the dog out the window. Reminds me of a book from many many years ago that everyone should read. 'Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.'

Keep them coming.

Peter

SuKai Loc: California

Hello Peter,

Thanks for the feedback. Funny you should mention the reshoot because before I even posted these I had thought about doing that because I wanted to sharpen the yellow barn in the back. I was going to do a series of different F stops, but I got lazy and just used what I had, I think in this set I had it set at F8.

I took the pictures on Tuesday, I looked at them, I processed them, and I went to bed. I knew I didn’t like the end result so I reprocessed them Wednesday (and should have went with the initial thought of re-shooting) and I still didn’t like what I was seeing but it was better than my 1st attempt. I knew the sky was in need of help and my barn was soft but posted anyway since I was just getting tired and needed to get some R-n-R.

I am using Photomatix and PSE 10 for the bulk of processing at this time and I plan to try and get Topaz Adjust and Lightroom too before too long ( good X-mas gift from my Dear Hubbie, ya think) I would really like the full version of Photoshop but I don’t know if I can afford it yet.

When I learned what HDR was and I purchased Photomatix I would just run things through once and call it done. Then I started watching the Trey Ratcliff webinar and I’m learning how to do the layers and clean-up (I’m on lesson 4) plus when I am bored at work I look for YouTube demo’s on any HDR subject I can find, yesterday I watched one by Captin Kimo who does those beautiful wave pictures.

Again thanks for your time and advice.

BTW… I was in my mid 40’s when I learned to ride and bike in my avatar is mine. My husband taught me to ride and he rides a smaller bike than me now. We do share it when we want to double up I’m not too comfortable having a passenger to worry about because it’s heavy enough weighing in at over 800 pounds.

I have gotten myself into a pickle this weekend because we got suckered into a Biker Barrel race at the local county fair. :roll: We couldn’t find enough participants to do it... so I bravely said I would. :? Wish me luck, it’s a buckle and 500 bucks to the winner. Of course I will be there with the camera filming the others! I hope to get some interesting photos. :thumbup:

Stevieboy Loc: West Palm Beach, Florida

Nice work and Peter you do a great job with your critiques.

SuKai Loc: California

Thank you :P

Chinaman Loc: Adelaide, South Australia, Australia

I agree with Peter wholeheartedly. We seem to have the same mind and posting before me means I just have to ditto his comments! Thanks Peter.
Oh, biker chic, love the lighting and saturation.

SuKai Loc: California

Thank You Chinaman