Lately I’ve been trying out some new photographic techniques. One of them is HDR (High Dynamic Range photography) As I understand it, this is usually accomplished by combining multiple exposures at different stops and digitally combining the best parts. This allows you to get details in both shadows and bright spots. It is becoming much more common as you see these fantastic skyline pictures showing up all over the internet. For my first attempt I cheated a little bit. I took a single shot and adjusted the exposure in Aperture to make a high, medium, and low exposure version. I then exported the versions and did the HDR work on those three versions.
The original shot …
After HDR adjustments …
It certainly fixed the trees in the shadows but I actually prefer the non-HDR shot. This is probably due to operator error more than anything else. If things go according to plan, I am going to Hawaii this summer and I definitely want to get this figured out before that happens.
Some of you may remember earlier this year when the California wildfires nearly took MacSparky headquarters. Well I’ve been hiking up into the hills and taking pictures. It is amazing how fast nature takes over. I’m thinking I’ll print a few of these for my office but not sure yet. Let me know what you think.
Here is one for photographers …
For a long time I looked at those funny graphs in my photo applications and just scratched my head. They are actually very helpful though both in the field and at the computer. I have more-or-less understood them now for awhile but I recently stumbled upon this excellent article that really helped me “get it.”
I spent a good part of my weekend getting comfortable with Aperture 2.0. I’ve been using Aperture for about a year. I’d like to say my choice of Aperture was the result of long testing and analysis between Adobe Lightroom and Aperture but in the end it came down to a very good deal when CompUSA was going out of business and the knowledge that an Apple product would inherently integrate better with OS X (which it does).
I really didn’t have much problem with version 1.5 and found it quite useful. That being said, 2.0 is a significant improvement.
Library Organization
Aperture has always been good for organizing your library. I really like that they put some of iPhoto’s innovations in to the new version. Particularly image scrubbing and .mac web galleries. I have roughly 8,000 photos in my library and it is very easy to find and work with all of them using Aperture.
Image Correction
Not only is the user interface easier to grok, there are some new tools that are fantastic. I particularly like the sliders for recovery (blown out highlights) and black point (too dark darks). Likewise the new vibrancy slider is a really nice tool for giving an image pop without screwing too much else up. Another tool I’m starting to experiment with but a little intimidated by is the dropper on the Color menu which allows me to adjust a specific skin tone.
So does Aperture replace Photoshop? No. However, if you do a decent job at the time of image capture, Aperture will be all you need for alot (if not most) of your images. All of the pictures in this article were only corrected in Aperture.
I’ll write more on Aperture once I get a bit deeper. For the time being, if you are considering Aperture, I recommend you go watch Apple’s very good tutorials right here. Any other Aperture jockeys out there? If so write in or comment.
Not only does Bill Bumgarner explain the benefits of a 50mm lens more coherently than I do, he also has a slick title. Read about The Nifty Fifty. I’ve been using my 50mm a few weeks now. I must admit I was surprised at how close the 50mm gets. I still have lots to learn with this lens but man am I liking what I’m getting so far.
I’ve been trying to improve my photography skills. As part of this, I’ve been thinking about putting a better lens on my Canon than the one that came with it. I read an article about a month ago about the merits of a fixed 50mm lens and started thinking about picking one up. Then, in just the last few days, I have been bombarded with 50mm propoganda. Merlin Mann bragged about his on MacBreak Weekly and I stumbled upon this excellent article by Gary Voth. Well I sort of fell into a good deal for a 50mm lens and while I’ve only played with it a bit, I really like it. Very sharp and that open aperture makes the flash almost superfluous. Once I get a few presentable photos, I’ll post them.
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