Hays Sunset

I found this place using google maps. I was looking for a pier of any description and thought I had found one and this place was remarkably close to where I live. What looked like a pier on the map actually tuned out to be a storm water pipe...not very exciting. I found this tree anyway and shot it instead.

Edit: 18/11/08 (large file)

A number of deviants have asked me how this photo got the way it is, so here is the run down.

Equipment: Canon 350D with standard 18-55mm kit lens @ 18mm(28mm as a 35mm equivalent) Av mode AEB with remote, on a Manfrotto 785B TriPod.

It starts with 3 exposures: 1/13, 0.3. 1.3 at f16 raw (always shoot in raw!), converted to jpeg and then merged using dynamic photo hdr [link] . It's quite easy to get carried away here because even though it is a very simple program, you can go totally nuts and boost colours and detail off the charts! But my aim this time was to faithfully reproduce the colours whilst retaining the refection (which I couln't do from either one of the exposures). So the tonemapping process was simply a matter of comparing against exposure 2 (the middle exposure is normally the most acurate representation of the overall dynamic range of the captured scene) and adjusting to suit. Unfortunately the hdr process adds heaps of noise so...the tonemapped image was then opened in PS CS3. From here I made two layers: the top layer gets the smart blur treatment (this process takes away noise) and then the blurred tree is erased exposing the non blurred tree underneath. The image is then flattened and all dust marks are removed (you get heaps on 350d's) and finally I gave it a slight de-saturation.

So there you have it! All my secrets revealed...ok, maybe not all, but certainly all that relate to this pic. I personally love all of this technical stuff, but I'm sure some will find that it detracts from the experience. I'm sorry about that! On the up-side though, I hope this shows that anyone with a thrice superseded entry level camera with a dodgy kit lens can produce reasonably good results.

P.S. As a part of this 'edit' I'm uploading a much larger version in order to make this pic print ready so, because dA is now re-sizing, it may look a little different (not too much I hope!)