Peggy’s Cove, Nova Scotia

May 6, 2009

June 2008

7:59pm

8:59pm – Photographers perch themselves in the best vantage points to see the last rays of sunshine glimmer across the ocean.

8:00pm

9:00pm – The orange globe in the distance vanishes below the horizon. All the photographers immediately pack up and leave. I stay behind.

8:25pm

9:25pm – The sun long gone, I reposition myself without having to worry about a crowd in front of me. I fire off seven shots and blend them using the HDR technique I mentioned in the last post.

Lessons Learned

  • Don’t effing leave when everyone else does.
  • Patience is rewarding.
  • HDR can make even lifeless post-sunset scenes look beyond awesome.
  • Gloating is fun.

End!

Nova Scotia

April 27, 2009

I love Nova Scotia so much. My upcoming trip in July will be my fourth trip in three years. Besides the beautiful Maritime models, I’m going to be focused on taking two specific types of images during my visit: HDR and Panoramic. I’ve put together some quick and dirty examples from my previous trips to show you what I mean. The JPEGs are fairly large so you can examine the detail in them!

First up, HDR (High Dynamic Range) imaging, which usually involves mashing together half a dozen photos all shot at different exposures, and then tonemapping them to extract the most detail. There are tons of tutorials on these methods that you can find via Google, so I’ll spare you the details. This image was made from eight raw files and tonemapped in Photomatix Pro.

Peggy's Cove, one of the most photographed places on Earth

Peggy's Cove, one of the most photographed places on Earth

Next up, two examples of panoramic photos, which are long photos stitched together from a bunch of smaller ones. I used Photoshop CS3′s Merge feature to stitch the photos together.

Pictou, Nova Scotia

Pictou, Nova Scotia

Lunenburg, Nova Scotia

Lunenburg, Nova Scotia

Like I said above, these are just really quick and simple examples. The panoramic shots were done without the benefit of a tripod, so I’m going to redo them properly when I go back this year. Fingers crossed for good weather!