HDR with the D7000 around Chasewater.

I thought i might blog my first experience with the D7000 while out and about on boxing day.

The sun was shinning brightly first thing, and gave me a good opportunity to get out and take a few shots with the D7000. My intention is to learn how to put a HDR image together using the new camera.

I had spent 2hrs reading the manual this morning and made very little headway. It is rather tedious reading through a 350 page manual while nursing a Christmas day hangover.
It needs saying that the best way to learn how the camera works is to get out with it and start pressing the buttons.  Previously i had a D60 which i loved to use, and found a sturdy and versatile accomplice. The D60 has helped me to understand the D7000 to some extent which was useful for getting started.

I will advise anyone to go and have a trawl through youtube videos to find tutorials which will definitely help. Whilst building my limited knowledge of HDR i looked in on many Youtube posts, some were downright awful and some very educational. One of them had a husband wife team showing their method for HDR. The lady however must have been on a bad day, and constantly gave her old man a ear bashing while operating the video camera. I guess the moral is that if you start watching and it does not captivate you change channel.

Here i am going to show my first effort at HDR along with a normal J-Peg of the same item.

Here is a bog standard image of a wooden bench (taken in RAW)

Now for the HDR image which used the above photo as well as one over exposed and one under exposed.

i used merge to hdr pro which is found under file in Photoshop. Simply select the three images you want to use and Photoshop will do the rest.

HDR image showing more detail in the dark areas.

I may well have messed about with this image a little to much in Photoshop. If you push it too hard, the photo begins to look more like a painting than a picture.

I think you will agree that there is far more detail in the HDR effort, even though its not perfect.

Just a quick tip i picked up from a youtube video which i think was useful for an armature like me.

When taking your HDR image, select the timer mode and set it to 2 second delay.Then hit the BKR button which will set the camera to take three images one exposed, one under and one over (you can change this, but we won't go there yet.) Now hit the shutter release and bang your three shots are done. the use of the timers stops one from getting any unwanted movement while depressing the shutter release.

After taking tips from other photographers, i have now decided to shoot all my images in RAW. This captures more detail, but also makes a bigger file (photo). I later convert to J-Peg when all photoshop work is done.

I did take a few other snaps while at Chasewater. I went down about three weeks ago and took some snaps of the pier. I took the same snaps again today, the difference in the water level is remarkable.

This was taken in early December.

Considering that it is less than 12 months since the work finished on the dam, and predictions were that it would take three years or so to fill, it ain't gone bad has it?

Looks like it has risen about a foot or so in three weeks.

The whole place has a bit of a buzz about it of late. I am sure if they kept visitor numbers, there would be a increase in the last 12 months over the previous year.

full car parks and  plenty of footfall all around the reservoir.

There are a few cows which roam around the top end of the reservoir. They are a friendly enough herd who even allow you to pat them. One of my Jacks got a bit too close behind one of them and just missed a flaying hoof. It is best advised to keep the dogs on a lead around the cows.

Big old girl, let me pat her and hold her horn.

At the top end of the reservoir stands a derelict house. I often wonder if it will ever become the attention of a developer, or even if it can?

derelict house.

And finally, i should have done more with the image below. These fish sculptures are on a putting/crazy golf course. I just think the concept of them being in water was worth more attention.

There should be no water, only golf balls around the fish.

Thanks for looking, your comments are very much appreciated.

Peace be with you.

Walsall wood camera club on the move.

I attended this weeks camera club, not knowing what was on offer for the night.
It turned out to be an interesting night, with a show from one of the members and a show of hands from the members.

Once everyone had settled into their seats, John Smith addressed his audience  John is the chairman of the club and a very friendly and welcoming fellow.
I knew there had been an emergency meeting in the week as i was at a committee members house having a lesson in framing.
It turns out that the meeting was to look for or at a new venue for the weekly meetings. John explained to his audience that the old Brownhills boys school (the Anex to me), had some very good facilities and were courting him to take the club there.

I must admit that the church hall that they use is very small and the parking is disastrous  Often the church will have events on the same night as the club, which causes visitors to park way away from the hall. The hall itself is not quite big enough for the amount of members they have. It all adds up to make sense for a move to a new venue.

The show of hands was almost unanimous for the move. It was stated that the subs/fee's would have to go up, and this was not because of the cost of the new hall, they would go up anyway.
From a new members point of view, the subs are very cheap indeed. i paid £5 to get my membership card and £1 per week subs. For that i get a cup of tea and a biscuit, which is bloody good value i think.
I would at least think putting the subs up to £1.50 would be the least they should do.

Now onto the show, which one of the senior and very skillful members put on with his wife.
One of his images in particular was a fantastically good shot in my opinion.. It was a black and white shot of a tattoo'ed gypsy, taken at a horse fair.
I had a chat with the presenter about HDR (high dynamic range) photography. He shoots almost all of his images in RAW. Most cameras convert photos into jpegs as soon as you take your shot. they do this to compress the image size and save space on your storage. Where a jpeg will lose the information captured in dark areas (i.e in the back of a dark shadow) RAW will keep that information to allow you to try to enhance it. I have now decided to give RAW a go and see if it improves my shots. We got into talking about HDR photos which really float my boat. The quality of HDR images is easy to see. In essence you take three photos of a subject without moving the camera if possible. Your first photo should be under exposed and your second over exposed, the third should be correctly exposed. One photo will show the images in its normal and acceptable light. The second will be dark and highlight the features in the very bright parts of the image. The third will be too light and show details of the shaded dark areas of the image. What you do then is in simple terms merge all of the images so that your dark areas have definition, the light areas have detail and your base shot fills out the rest. It works, but it does take some mastering. i tried a quick experiment at work today as i drove to my office. I wound the window down in my car and took three snaps of some random trees.

HDR attempt

 none HDR photo.

On the face of it there is not much difference in the images. I think the top image is slightly deeper than the second image, but that may be my imagination. I will do some more HDR photos soon and get them put on the blog.

I am off on a metal detecting dig on Sunday which may offer some opportunities for good Photos.

Happy snapping.