Handheld HDR with a Canon 1D-X in Europe

I had great anticipation before our recent holiday in Europe of getting some great photos. I did get some pretty good ones (stay tuned for another blog post on that) but often because the sky was overcast the lighting wasn't great for those iconic shots of of the European landscape.

Either the sky was over blow or the subjects would be way under exposed. So time to try HDR. For those new to HDR there is plenty on the web about the what and how of HDR, this blog post is just my first experience, the tools I used and the results.

Let me say from the outset that, as with most things photographic, I'm a newbie. This was really my first crack at HDR, certainly with this body. Constructive comments are welcome.

I have the Canon 1D-X set-up to bracket -3, -2, -1, 0, 1, 2, and 3. So a bracket of 7 shots at 1 stop intervals.

First I import into Aperture and usually do not touch the images - simply export to full sized jpegs. I used Bracketeer to combine the images into a single HDR image. I have to say that there are a lot of knobs and buttons on this software and none of them are very clear. I mainly fiddle with the "Mu" and "Sigma" sliders which change the look of the combined image - a more user friendly interface would be helpful.

What Bracketeer seems to do very well is auto-align the images. I was careful to hold as still as possible taking the shots, and the 1D-X's high ISO performance lets you use higher ISO's so faster shutter speeds but  it is impossible to keep perfect alignment during a 7 shot burst no matter who you are or what gear you have. So Bracketeer get 5 stars for this feature.

Then I import the tiff files back into Aperture. Becuase the lighting was so flat to begin with the HDR images come out pretty flat using Bracketeer. Some HDR software boost saturation as part of the process but Bracketeer doesn't seem to. So on most of the images I bumped saturation, mid-contrast and definition.

The results are pretty good for a first go.

Here's my favorite. And below is a link to all the HDR shots from the trip.

Link to Album

Tasmanian Winter - Absolutely Stunning

We were back in Tassie last weekend. Not something people often think about as a winter getaway destination but Tassie can turn on some fantastic weather in the winter months.

We had less than 24 hours in Coles Bay - But couldn't have stayed for weeks.

I wasn't expecting great photography weather so I was light on gear. Canon 1D-X and a 24-70mm L Lens.

But I managed to snap some great pics.

Here's my favorite.

... and here's a gallery link to 9 of the best.

Gallery Link

Back in business

Thanks to a strong backup regime and a good insurance policy I have a new Macbook Pro retina display fully restored and not a byte of data lost.

Now the task of reviewing 3,258 images from our trip begins. Stay tuned for the results.

Canon 1D-X Advisory

I need to check my body.

Here's a link to a post over at Canon Rumors

http://www.canonrumors.com/2013/06/product-advisory-for-the-eos-1d-x-eos-1d-c/

And the same link at Canon USA

http://www.usa.canon.com/cusa/support/consumer?pageKeyCode=prdAdvDetail&docId=0901e024809120b7

Backup x4. You'll be glad you did.

Not long back from a 6 week around the world trip. Had a fantastic time and will post some pics here shortly.

I need to get a new Macbook Pro first, because the one I had got stolen in Paris. These guys are professionals. I literally turned my back for seconds and "poof!" gone.

I'm yet to confirm 100% but I'm confident I haven't lost one image.

1. The MBP backs up to my time capsule at home.
2. I have a separate backup of my Aperture Libraries at home and another one at work.
3. All my documents are also in cloud storage.
4. Whilst travelling I keep a copy of the pics I take on the camera (CF Cards) even if I've copied them on to the Laptop.

The only reason I didn't replace the MBP while travelling was that with WWDC next week there's a good chance of a spec update. Assume prices don't go up, insurance should be happy to pay for the updated unit.

So yes it was a major pain in the neck to be hit by these thieves. But with a strong backup regime it didn't hurt as much as it otherwise might have.

So team. Backup your images!

Oh and the added bonus of OSX? I could remote wipe the MBP from my iPhone.

Time Lapse - Night Sky

We went bush camping again for a couple of nights over Easter.

I was keen to try our the new CamRanger (CR) with the 1D-X doing some time-lapse photography.

One of the great things about the CR is the ability to view the image live on the iPhone, so getting focus is much easier than the sometimes awkward angles you get in to see the screen whilst pointing the lens to the sky.

Hooking the CR up is so simple. Plug the USB into the unit and the camera body. Switch it on, connect the iPhone to the WiFi hotspot created by the CR and volla! live view on the iPhone.

I fitted 24-70mm L Series Canon glass to the Canon big gun and did a couple of test shots to get the right exposure.

I ended up using ISO 8000, F8 to get a 20" exposure. Any shorter than 20 seconds and you need a higher ISO, any longer and the stars stop being dots and start to become lines due to their apparent movement from the earth's rotation. The f8 aperture was to ensure the trees were in focus as well as the stars.

Next step was to dial into the CR app on the iPhone 300 shots 30 seconds apart - thats a 10 second movie at 30 fps covering 150mins of rotation.

Hit start and wait......

150mins is a long time in the cool night. I had a campfire to keep me warm and occupied. If you look carefully in the movie you will see some sections show a reddish hue on the trees - no doubt when a few extra logs went on the fire.

So why isn't the movie 10secs long? A simple but stupid answer. The camera battery went flat. Note to self. Don't do a long time-lapse sequence with a camera battery on half charge.

Anyway the result is pretty pleasing albeit short.

Enjoy.

To produce the movie I export the pics from Aperture to JPG then I use Time-Lapse (available on the app store from Microprojects) to put the pic into a movie. In this instance I have produced the movie in iMovie to add the titles and music etc..

OT - Google Reader Replacement

Up front apologies to my photofile readers but I didn't have anywhere else to post this. I just it might be helpful to any die hard Google Reader (GR) users. Please bear with me while I go off topic.

I've tried 3 of the recommended options for replacing GR when it is pulled on July 1, 2013

First I tried ifttt - this is a really cool service that allows you to create "recipes" which are like web based macros for dealing with information on the web. You can link emails to Evernote to DropBox to Facebook etc... It works reasonably well but not perfect and its a bit clunky as a replacement for GR. I set up an RSS to email recipe which sent an email to a new Gmail account. It posted fine but too many moving parts.

Second I tried theoldreader - not bad. It has the familiar GR feel but is suffering badly at the moment due to high demand. I got sick of waiting.

Lastly I tried feedly - I should have come here first. For an inexplicable reason I didn't want to load another app into my chrome browser. Its a stupid thing I have about keeping this clean. I'm guessing it comes from the bad old windows days when a system would slowly grind to a halt after loading too much stuff onto it - even if you removed the software the system would still run like a dog. Anyway if I can get away with not installing another application I usually will take the pure web alternative.

Well silly me. Feedly (dumb name) works just great. Sure I am taking one big bet that these guys will deliver on the promise to migrate to their own rss api. At the moment they are simply a new front end for GR but they have promised to deliver a stand alone alternative. I'm backing them in to do so.

Oh and BTW the IOS app for feedly looks and works great. It has a bit of a windows 8 feel to it but I like that. I actually think IOS is in desperate need of a refresh but that another post - another day - maybe.

Anyway - "Go Feedly".