Archive for Philadelphia

HDR Series – Getting Started, Part 2: Image Management in Aperture 3

So you’ve just walked in the door and put your bag down, now what? How do you get your files ready for HDR? I will describe how I import my brackets into (the best file management program ever) Aperture 3. 🙂

Step #1: Import

– Fire up Aperture 3. Under the “Adjustments” tab you’ll find “RAW Fine Tuning”. You’ll want to move all 7 sliders to “0” zero and create an hdr preset. (clicking on the gear icon will show the save preset option. More on why this is necessary later)

– Under the “Library” tab create a new “Folder” with the Year and another inside that folder with the Month.

– The “Import” tab should pop up and it will look something like this. Read More→

HDR Series – Getting Started, Part 1: Setup

I would like to introduce you to an HDR series, that will hopefully open new doors to help improve your HDR workflow.  I’ve been shooting HDR for a little over 14 months. Maybe not a very long time but after pushing sliders around in Photomatix I wasn’t quite satisfied. Eventually I reached that ah-ha moment when introduced to new techniques, so I hope with this series to help you achieve your very own ah-ha moment. Be sure to look for Part 2: Image Management in Aperture 3 and Part 3: HDR Tone-Mapping!

Step #1: Setting up your camera

– Your DSLR should have Auto-Exposure Bracketing (AEB) but if not you can still shoot your brackets by hand.

– I always shoot HDR in RAW (Full Resolution) with my camera in “Manual” mode.  You can use “Aperture Priority” mode, but if your bracketing manually like I do then you’ll want to use “Manual” mode.

– Set White Balance to AUTO (unless you have a grey card or color passport)

– If your camera has “Exposure Delay Mode” and your shooting on a tripod then use it!  (You can find this setting in your camera’s menu area)

– Set your “EV Steps For Exposure Control” to “1/2 Steps” instead of 1/3 steps. (Also found in your camera’s menu area)

– Now your set up to bracket for HDR, but you’ll will need to decide on how many brackets you need for your scene. Read More→

Photography Without Labels

When Trevor asked me to contribute Cityscape and Landscape articles to the site last year I was honored. 2010 was a great learning year for me and in 2011, I’ve been able to reflect on all of my hard work for the past 365 days.  Honoring the gems and realizing my mistakes, It’s allowed me to focus on this new year with a new mind frame.  One thing I decided to remove is the word “scape” from my categories of work. I prefer to use the terms “City” & “Land”.  For me this broadens the subject matter for which I can write about, because recently I’ve been shooting a lot of different subject matter when it comes to city and land photography.  When I think of the word “scape”, I think of skyline shots, and sunsets over the ocean, but in fact city and land photography is so much more than that. In my recent adventures I’ve found ways to produce city and land images together, like the examples below.


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