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.
europe 2008 pics
so I came back from Europe yesterday. Went to France and Switzerland, was really fun. I have close to 2500 (23.4GB) of pics from this trip (and I haven't even transferred all of the ones from my other camera yet =/).
I obviously didn't upload all of them cause that'd take forever but here are some of the ones I thought were best that I picked out - http://www.flickr.com/photos/weasel707/collections/72157607066362777/
Here are some of my favourites:
Eiffel Tower
Eiffel Tower at Night
Louvre, inside
View from Jungfraujoch, Switzerland, highest train station in Europe at 3471m
Lauterbrunnen Waterfall
View of Lauterbrunnen Valley from Mannlichen / HDR
View of Wetterhorn near Mannlichen / HDR
View of Eiger, Monch, and Jungfrau from Mannlichen / HDR
View near Kleine Scheidegg
Sign Post near Kleine Scheidegg, Wetterhorn in background
Sunset in Bern, Switzerland / HDR
Zurich, Switzerland / HDR
Cow in Swiss Alps, near Mannlichen / HDR
Anyway there's a lot more, those are just some of my faves. The best pics are probably in the Alps set, cause the Alps are really pretty. I've been asked for the high res (original) version of the pic with the cow in the mountains, here it is - Cow in Swiss Alps - Original Size (3900x2613).
fishies n’ stuff
Ok so I finally finished scanning all my underwater pics from Cuba. Scanning negatives takes a reeeaaally long time :/.
You can see all of the ones I uploaded on my flickr page (they're the last few in that set, scroll down a bit).
Here's a few that I think are pretty cool (click for larger sizes):
(Most people don't see it, but there IS an octopus in this picture! Click on it for a larger size. You can see it's eyes sticking out and the rest body kind there. I guess they kinda suck their legs in and spread out or something when they're hiding in a hole :/.)
(Some funky flat fish with eyes on the top of its head. Kinda cool cause it's dark around the edges while it's swimming, but changes colour to blend in with the ocean floor when it stops).
As you can see the quality is terrible. These were taken with cheap plastic underwater cameras. We got 3 of them for free from Nolitours when we went to Mexico. They're "focus-free", which quite literally means what it says. You just have to guess the distance you're taking a picture at, and anything closer than or beyond the predetermined focus distance will turn out blurry. Hell, they don't even use batteries! You rewind the film by turning a plastic wheel thingy. Meh, better than nothing I guess.
cuba
So uh, I just came home from a week in Cuba today. It was really awesome, except the flight. We were supposed to be flying on a Cubana Airlines A320 plane, but for some unknown reason (I'm guessing that plane broke down so they decided to borrow another one from a different airline), we had to go on this really really crappy Boeing 727 (similar to the Tupolev Tu-154). This is a plane from the mid-1960's, and Boeing stopped manufacturing them in the 1980's. I didn't think I'd ever have to fly on something this crappy in Canada. The only comparable experience I have is the Il-62, but that's an ancient Soviet plane so it owns. Anyways, the airline was "Flair Air", some charter airline that nobody's ever heard of. They have a total of 2 planes, only one of which is a passenger plane - the Boeing 727-200 that I traveled on. Here's a picture (from their official site):
Here's another picture of it (that I took at the airport in Holguin).
