What’s Your Preference?

jherman · #1 (**permalink**) 11-20-2011, 02:11 PM

This HDR photo was taken at Lake Arthur (Moraine State Park in PA, USA) with my Nikon D90, no flash, with my 18-105 mm Nikkor lens. I used a tripod and bracketed 3 shots after I took several non bracketed to ensure I got all tones in the bracketed shots. It was so sudden that the clouds reflected perfectly in the water. I loved how the BW HDR came out with Photomatix software. First I slightly adjusted them in Lightroom then brought them into Photomatix with minor tone mapping adjustments. I am pleased to say I have this one in a gallery exhibit and am trying for two others in the DC area.

22 mm focal length with 200 ISO, exposed at .004sec

DianaS · #2 (**permalink**) 11-20-2011, 06:36 PM

Beautiful!

Quo Fan · #3 (**permalink**) 11-21-2011, 01:35 PM

I like the high contrast in the photo, looks good. Maybe one thing that would make it better is a little grain, so it looks more like an older photo.

samantha12 · #4 (**permalink**) 11-23-2011, 11:44 AM

Awesome Photography.

garymiller · #5 (**permalink**) 12-11-2011, 05:27 PM

I've been going through all these post all day and I believe this is the best picture I have found.

paulkaranik · #6 (**permalink**) 12-12-2011, 09:11 AM

very nice shot. the effect on the picture is not overdone, yet the photo maintains a "surrealstic" mood

thanks for sharing

EmyB · #7 (**permalink**) 12-12-2011, 09:41 AM

May I ask - how did you get the water so smooth? My understanding is that long exposure times would do that, but wouldn't that have messed up the bracketed shots because the clouds would have moved?

Can you please explain a bit more how you managed the reflections? Thanks!

jherman · #8 (**permalink**) 12-12-2011, 06:46 PM

It was still calm water, if you blow it up you can see some silt to the left of the dock. Barely any water movement made for silky HDR of the combined 3 exposures. The sun was at about 12 oclock/1oclock postion and when I saw the shift in the cloud reflections I was ready to bracket. It was so cool, that my eye caught it too, 2 years ago, I wouldn't have trained my eyes to see this. It was a momentary occurance, lasted for about 2 minutes, then it was gone. Then it is minor adjustments in Lightroom to the three bracketed images, then bring into HDR software. The reflections do make it surreal. Thanks for asking and the positive feedback.

Joelle