Category Archives: HDR Photography

Ruby Tuesday – 1957 Chevrolet Bel Air Convertible

1957ChevroletBelairConvertible

Logan and I went to the Leake Car Auction here in Tulsa to look at some cars. I’m kind of drawn to the red ones for some reason. I was also drawn more to the 1950’s and earlier cars than I was to the newer ones. I guess I’ll never grow out of it. If you look really hard at the corner of the chrome bumper you can see me, maybe.

Ruby Tuesday

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Our World – HDR Photography the Easy and Inexpensive Way

I am a picture taker, not a photographer, I don’t give a flip about f stops, RAW format, and shutter speeds and all the rest. I just want a decent photograph. One thing that I find a really difficult is taking decent photographs when the subject is in a shadow, or when there is a lot different shadows and sun on the subject. It drives me crazy. I found out something this past weekend about a way to overcome, at least partially, these problems.

I was at the Philbrook Museum and I was trying to take a photograph of one of my favorite sculptures there, “Prayer” by Allan Houser. I have never had much luck. I decided to try the “Bracketing” function for the exposure setting on the “P” mode of the camera. I have a Canon Powershot SX40 HS and I understand that the “Bracketing” setting is pretty common. Basically on that setting the camera takes three shots, one with the correct exposure, one underexposed, and one overexposed.  So the shot above was the correct, the one below is a little overexposed, and the one below that is a little underexposed.

Next, I found a website once I got home Fotor HDR Software that combines the three photographs into one. It also has to do some other magic like correcting for the movement of the camera  while you are taking the the three exposures. 
The result is called an HDR photograph. HDR stands for “High Dynamic Range” where by taking multiple images and combining them one can get a photograph closer to what one sees with their own eyes. Check out my friend Wikipedia HDR for more information. Back to the Houser Sculpture, below is the result.

Houser Sculpture Philbrook HDR

I am really happy with this. Everything looks better.  I’m sure that there is software out there that can do the thing a lot more handily than the web site. I’m not into software though. I like to do everything on the cloud. Software requires updates and then moving the software to a new computer is always a hassle. I’m intrigued by the Photoshop model now where you kind of rent the software. I’d love to hear from somebody who is doing that to see how it is working. I notice that Paintshop offers HDR tools and you can buy it for $80. I have an older version that I could upgrade but it was verrrryy slooooooowww. I have a new computer but I don’t want anything that drags.

 Feel free to correct me if I have the whole HDR thing wrong. I’m just now getting into it. Also if you have information about other websites or software that can do HDR I’d love to hear about that also. 

 Below are some more pics from Philbrook that I did the exposure bracketing and then processed them through the Foto HDR site.

Philbrook Tulips HDR

Red and very dark purple tulips.

Hippo HDR Philbrook

This is a good example of a subject that is hard to take a photograph of due to its shadowy setting.

Philbrook Tempietto HDR

The Tempietto is the signature structure of the gardens at Philbrook.

Philbrook HDR

This is Philbrook built by Tulsa Oilman Waite Phillips in the late 1920’s and then donated to the City of Tulsa in the 1930’s. It houses an outstanding art museum. Check out the Philbrook Museum of Art‘s web site for more information.

Anyway, I feel that I have discovered a great tool that anybody with a rather modest camera can use. I’d love to hear from other people who use HDR imaging.

I’m linking up today with Our World Tuesday.