Here’s an HDR shot of Machu Picchu. Hernan and I hiked up into the hills, which left me panting and sweating. But it was worth it to get this view of the Incan ruins. Once I caught my breath, I took this shot and a few others from the same vantage. With more distance, it’s easier to see how well the stone work melds into the surrounding landscape. This was taken at around sunset, right after a light rain had abated.
This shot is from the second round of my tests of HDR photography. This is my favorite of the magnolia set (that’s a magnolia to the right.) I’m pretty much just using the defaults in Photomatix at this point and haven’t started tweaking the settings much. I also uploaded a few shots of Emma and Anita’s visit.
The first time I saw an HDR photo, I was amazed. These vivid, almost surreal images just vibrate with color and light. But the quick research I did suggested you needed Photoshop to do High Dynamic Range photography, and I wasn’t willing to shell out $700 for software that I was going to use only as an HDR toy. Then, via BoingBoing, I found a link to O’Reilly’s Short Cuts on HDR photography. For less than $8, you can download a 57-page guide to producing HDR images, including suggestions on HDR software that are much cheaper than Photoshop. This is my first attempt, shot off our back deck at sunset. It’s a compilation of three images shot under-, correctly and over-exposed. If you want to see examples of HDR that are truly mind-blowing, check out the Flickr HDR group. I’m hoping to take something at some point that’s worth submitting there. But for a first attempt, I’m pretty pleased with this one.
