Thanks Jeremy Cowart via Chase Jarvis.

What a fine morning walk we had with the new Gitzo tripod. This final image is the result of four vertical five-frame exposures, stitched together in photoshop. Cropped. A channel selection used to create a mask, and a couple of blending layers used to, well, undo some of the magic that Photomatix sometimes gets carried away with. Topaz helped provide some nice crunchy detail to the tree line, and a nice gradient vignetted the foreground.  Orig post on flickr.

Brother in law writes to ask what gear to buy. Excerpts from his note:
============
i often shoot people in motion. i’m particularly interested in capturing expression, which is fleeting, so i like to burst shoot, for example shooting 20 or 30 frames of a laugh. i don’t use flash, because it washes out flesh tones(again, i’m not sophisticated enough to understand-or properly program- a flash to make it do its job without washing out the shot before i grab the camera and start shooting. So- what i really mean is, i need something i can essentially point and shoot, sometimes in continuous shot mode, in any existing lighting conditions, that will yield crystal clear, unblured details, even if i’m at some distance from my subject, and even if my hands are a little(or a lot) shaky- which they are; something that -ideally- autofocuses, and doesn’t need a lot of programming, that nonetheless yields crystal clear images of subjects, maybe in motion, without artificial illumination. have i explained myself adequately? does such a beast
exist?
=========

You should look at the Nikon D3, but my guess is the Nikon D700 will do. The D700 is lighter, but it has the same “full frame” sensor that the D3 has, which is enough detail to create an outdoor billboard. The D3 is $5k on its own, but it will last longer than you in terms of build quality.

The D3 will shoot I believe 5 frames per second, which should be more than enough. The trick to detail is the sensor (either of the above will do great) and light. If you have a big hole (an expensive, f/1.2 or f/1.4), you get lots of light. Lots of light, and you get nice details without flash. But wide open you also don’t get lots of depth of field – which of course is not to be confused with detail. If you need loads of detail across a deep field, you need a narrow whole (f/8 to f/64) and there’s no way to compensate for that except to add more light. If you are outdoors, this should never be a problem, but there are some hard core physics that have to be dealt with.

One thing that is improving is the pixel quality at high ISO or sensitivity settings. Used to be at ISO 800 or higher (Tri-X black and white is ISO 400) you got lots of “noise,” the appearance of red green and blue pixels where the subject should be black, or any other nicely blended color. With the newer sensors (like those recommended w/ D3 and D700), you get pretty high quality pixels up to ISO 1600 or 3200 or higher.

That means shooting faster – whether with faster shutter or ‘smaller hole’ – more depth of field.

As for lens, I would recommend one really really nice fixed-length lens, say a 50mm or 85mm, for shooting people from six to 12 feet away.

I took the pictures of Sarah’s performance and the family snaps around the theatre with that lens. No flash until the shots after the show. The picture at the top of this post was taken with the 85mm, but with flash… so it’s not all terrible with flash

There is no comparing the overall image quality of a fixed-length or prime lens in my opinion. f/1.2 or f/1.4 are available, are really expensive, and are totally worth it. You can shoot in very low light with no flash with these babies.

Then I would get the Nikon 18-2oo f/3.5-5.6 VR. This will solve 90+% of your requirements. VR means vibration reduction, which means it will compensate, and very well, for shaky hands or body. It will work well for outdoor, though it will be a bit ‘slow’ for indoor except under very bright (pro arena event) conditions without flash.

That’s a start. B&H photo is the place to buy when you are ready – at least that’s what my photo geek friend from Scarsdale tells me.

Cathedral of St. Peter, Geneva, Switzerland, originally uploaded by TimDD.

Updated with Giorgos~ generously shared technique for creating that awesomely professional looking drop shadow.

Ann Beha Architects executed a magnificent and respectful renovation of this Andover, MA landmark.

Some Phillips Alumni have requested prints, so I have partnered with Imagekind to help them get a high quality printout.  Let’s see if they meant it!

I’ve had a number of requests and inquiries about processing technique, so I decided to put together a mini-tutorial on some of my most commonly used tools and techniques using this picture as the example. This will be a long post… but I hope worth the read.

First, start with great subject matter . This is Frank Lloyd Wright’s winter home and residential architecture school, Taliesin West, in Scottsdale, Arizona. Let’s look at how we got to this result given the original images.

At right, the original image.

The exposure details are: ISO 100, f/4.0, 1/1250. While the picture is decent, there is a huge black void just right of center (the building’s kitchen), and there is detail lost in the studio area to the left (large white canvas areas).

Also, the sky lacks drama: it’s a bit flat.

The picture doesn’t adequately express the impact of the building material — rock from the immediate vicinity of the building mixed with concrete. There isn’t enough contrast or texture to accurately reflect the experience of these materials in this building at the time I was there.

Here’s exposure two. Same ISO, same f-stop, 1/640th. I see a dramatic difference in shadow detail available, which PhotoMatix will take advantage of nicely for us.

However note that with only three exposures, and hand-helds at that (I was on a tour, and unable to take my time for setup), we still need some help on those pesky shadow areas. In an ideal situation, I would have had the tripod, and make seven exposures (at f/4, three each at one stop intervals below and above the “middle” exposure setting.

More on this later.

Here’s exposure three. This one is f/4.0, but at 1/2500th. This will provide loads of data for the highlight areas which are quite void of information in the original exposure.

There’s nice depth in the Arizona sky as well.

I also find the foreground detail and water tone useful for the finished project.

Here is a snapshot of the PhotoMatix settings. PhotoMatix is an excellent tool for generating high dynamic range images from multiple exposures. It includes a number of adjustments, and in this on I boosted the saturation a bit (which is almost always necessary, given the trade offs HDR software makes). I also selected “very high” light smoothing, which means this blended image will have few of the artifacts I personally find annoying when I’m going for a realistic, as opposed to some kind of scifi, effect.

With this image I am definitely looking for more realism.

In the original, I generated the HDR in 16-bit depth (just because I want to retain as much data as I can as long as I can).

Time for PhotoShop.

If you click on any of these embedded images, you can see larger renditions for details. This is the TIF, created by PhotoMatix, loaded into Photoshop.

As you can see, I created three additional layers to produce the final image. This first is a layer I will create to address sharpness, texture, and contrast issues using the LucisArt “Exposure” filter.

The second additional layer uses the gradient tool to create more drama in the sky.

The third deals with what I find is a distraction in the foreground — the stone deck surrounding the pool.

Here is the LucisArt tool with the final settings I chose to use for this image. [Note: the LucisArt filter only works in 8-bit depth mode]. As you can see, the tool has two “adjustments” in the “Exposure” filter. The round shapes along the bottom seem to determine the pixel radius at which the tool operates for a given filter application, while the slider (set here at 50) seems to control the “power” of the filter effect. I am making all of this up, however, as I have not consulted any documentation at any time. Play with the tool on your own images: you’ll find what degrees of impact you are comfortable with.

LucisArt has a dramatic impact on your image — and it can be a bit scary. But fear not, for we shall use a mask, our brush tool, and opacity settings to ensure we get enough, and not too much, impact on our finished image from this tool.

And look at the improvement in those very dark shadows! Loads of detail to enrich the final image. And LucisArt helped dramatically in a problem area caused by hand-holding the three original exposures. PhotoMatix attempts to align the image — but does so around subject matter at the center of the image. LucisArt Exposure has had a “sharpen / unsharp mask” effect on some of the “fuzzy areas” of the original HDR — especially in the tree at right.

On the negative impact side, it is easy to see the “pixel damage” that the LucisArt filter has done to the sky. I almost always mask the sky from the LucisArt filter for this reason. That is, I mask out areas of the original image that need the detail and integrity of the original, and use the mask and brush tools to allow the magic of the LucisArt filter to effect the final image where appropriate.

In this case, after applying the filter (clicking on the big “check mark” in the LucisArt tool), I immediately did an “alt-click” on the mask icon in the layers palette to create the mask. This masked the entire new layer from LucisArt, leaving my original image showing.

I then took up the brush tool at 300 pixels and 70% opacity, and started to paint away there areas of the LucisArt-filtered image that I wanted in the final image.

Play around with the brush and these masks on your own: you’ll get the hang of it quickly. With layers and the ability to switch between foreground and background brush color, you can do and undo to your heart’s and your image’s content. I played around for quite some time, but there were a couple of interesting learnings here.

1) LucisArt Exposure is perfect for bringing out contrast and texture on surfaces like the concrete and stone, the redwood beams and trusses, and the vegetation on the mountains behind Taliesin. I allowed lots of the LucisArt filtered image to come through in those areas.

2) I thought that the filter did too much damage to the water in the pool. So I switched the brush color from background to foreground, and restored that area to the original. There are cases where I’ll even import one of the original exposures, and create a mask to bring some aspect of one of the original frames into the finished product. Perhaps I’ll do a tutorial on that some day too.

3) I determined that the foreground stone needed a bit more texture — in fact I did a final pass to ensure that all stone surfaces I could find were in the 60-70% opacity range providing great texture from the LucisArt filter layer. I toned down the grass a bit, since it looked a bit too beard-like with full texture from the filter.

If you look at the enlarged image, you can see the effect of these brush strokes on the mask for the background copy layer. There the mask is white, I have allowed all of the LucisArt-filtered layer to show through, where you see gray, it is partial opacity. Where the mask is black, the original data shows through in the final image.

Still not entirely satisfied: I want to ensure that the clear focus is on the main building. This will involve creating a new layer to place a gradient in the sky, and a new layer to place a gradient over the foreground stone and the pool.

The gradient tool took me a while to understand, but in this case I did this:

1) Created the new layer by clicking on the new layer icon in the layers palette (Layer 1 in this snapshot). I selected the gradient tool, and the “foreground to transparent” option. I set the blending mode of this layer to “Overlay,” which adds contrast. I then mouse clicked and dragged from the top edge of the sky down to the top of the building, and released the mouse button. The gradient was created as you see it here — all I had to do was adjust the opacity, in this case to 65%.

2) Created the final layer by clicking on the new layer icon in the layers palette (Layer 2 in this snapshot). I selected the gradient tool, again using “foreground to transparent” option. And again set the blending mode to “Overlay.” But this time I started in the lower left corner of the image, and click-dragged toward the fountain in the middle of the triangular pool. I added another click-drag from the lower right toward the fountain, but not as long. Set the opacity to 65% to achieve the focus on the building that I was after in this project.

I would love to receive feedback on this tutorial, either here as comments, in Flickr mail, or you can email me at “tim at synopshots dot com.” Thanks.

Davids-Large-Mouth, originally uploaded by TimDD.

I call this one "David’s Large Mouth," which requires some explaining.  David is my brother, and probably my best friend.  He loves fishing (something I’ve struggled to understand and share, though my son hasn’t and does), and sorted out a charter to take the kids out I think four years ago… Here’s a shot.  The camera was a 3mp Fuji of some kind (long since stolen), so forgive the quality, but the expression is priceless!

A North Andover landmark, taken just before a dramatic autumn sunset.

Jules and I brought Ian and Eric to the Celtics game last night. I cranked up the 70-200mm at ISO 800, and got a couple of decent shots. Here’s one of the dreaded Kobe — who, it has to be said, can create a shot.

This one actually got a fair amount of processing time.  I went through the painstaking process of making Perk, Kobe, and Ray Allen a selection — which required substantial work.  But I wanted them to pop out from the background, which while detailed is distracting.

LucisArt provided the usual chewy texture and contrast, without, IMHO, becoming too "CGI."

Testing image widths for PhoBlo posts…

Trying to sort out the best image size for the postings… just a test.