yay new monitor
It's a 22-inch Dell E228WFP. Not actually from Dell though, got it at Future Shop for the same price. I didn't bother trying to do a dual-screen thing with my laptop 'cause the laptop's screen is too small and it takes too much effort looking from one to the other. The new monitor runs at 1680x1050 while the laptop is 1440x900 (the laptop screen is 14-ish inches btw. I think. Actually it might be 15. Whatever, who cares.)
Single-Exposure HDR with Photomatix – View of Eiger, Monch, and Jungfrau from Mannlichen
In a previous post I showed how you can make an HDR image from 3 exposures - which is considered the "proper" way to do it. However, I also mentioned that this is possible using only one exposure. This is done using the RAW file created by the camera (you usually need to enable a setting to make it do that). The reason for this is that a RAW file stores much much more colour information (hence the larger size, usually 3x that of the JPG for the same photo). A JPG can only store a limited amount of colour information (24 bits is around 16 million colours). Now, if you don't intend on doing anything with the image, then keeping only the JPG file is just fine - since computer monitors can't display more colours than that anyways. However, with good cameras, the light sensor is actually a lot more sensitive and captures more detailed colour information than that which can be described by a JPG file (ie. 16 bits per channel rather than 8). Using the additional colour information available in a RAW file, it is possible to recreate conditions necessary to make an HDR image.
Viva Strike
Is anybody else as annoyed with the recent Viva strike as I am? Transport service frequency along the Viva routes has gone down from a convenient every ten minutes to every half hour, with only YRT services running. Today is the 11th day of the strike, which started on September 25th, 2008.
HDR Airplane @ YYZ
Recently I've been doing lots of stuff with HDR photography. In case you don't know what HDR is, here's the Wikipedia definition - "high dynamic range imaging (HDRI) is a set of techniques that allows a greater dynamic range of exposures (the range of values between light and dark areas) than normal digital imaging techniques. The intention of HDRI is to accurately represent the wide range of intensity levels found in real scenes ranging from direct sunlight to shadows."
Basically, it involves combining a number of exposures into one final image, especially useful in cases where you have light and dark parts in a scene which are impossible to capture in one single exposure. The best way to explain this is by example.
Here are three photos of the same thing taken in quick succession with different exposures (using the bracketing feature on my dad's Nikon D80):
Airplane at YYZ - exposure 1
Airplane at YYZ - exposure 2
Airplane at YYZ - exposure 3
