Cloud Pool II
HDR processing of 3 brackets at +/- 2.0 E.V.
This is another photo taken during my Canon G15 experiments last weekend. Last year I posted a similar view, Cloud Pool, which I think is better processed and framed. Those shots were treated with Picasa from single jpegs, with a lot of work on the sky using the limited tools available in that software. Seeing those differences I was inspired to try more than just the HDR version above, but also to work 0n some of the RAW exposures to see what could be drawn out of them in Lightroom.
The middle image is the 0.0 E.V. image with the sky darkened up, and the reflection a bit too. The bottom version is the -2.0 E.V. bracket with work on the lightening up the land.
I think with a bit more work I could get the bottom one to pretty closely resemble the HDR version. The 0 E.V. version has lost too much in the sky to truly work out well, but the land is better. All this suggests I could do better with the HDR fusion to bring out the best of both these brackets.
Lightroom Processing of the 0.0 EV version, sky and reflection.
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-2.0 E.V. version with Lightroom processing of the land.
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Canon G15, 6.1mm (=28mm full frame), ISO80, f1.8, 0.0 E.V = 1/400th top
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burnt embers 
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Beautiful.
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Thanks Ryan!
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Look at that green grass. Sigh. It’s been awhile since I’ve seen any!
these are beautiful – the last one has a moodiness I like.
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Hi Karen – green grass = lawm mowers and my lawn is crying out for a cut. So I sigh along with you, but for other reasons. That last one has a darker mood than the others, which is kind of wintery for around here. I like it when it gets quite a lot darker than this, in the sky. It can make for some very dramatic moments.
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I think the last shot is my favorite in this group. It closely resembles the HDR effort, although I would push the shadows slider a bit to open them up. That would give you an almost perfect match although I do like the contrast between earth and sky.
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Hi Ken, I see what you mean, a bit more of the shadows would do the trick to make them very nearly identical. This does suggest maybe I need to go back to basics a little, shoot brackets, but process individual images to see what I can get from them. I was doing pretty well with Picasa for a year or so, but got LR4 at the same time as Photomatix and probably have not put enough effort into LR yet. So much to learn.
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That first shot steals the show – a huge contrast range by the look of it – all very well contained.
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Hi Andy – thanks. There was a wide range in the three exposures. I am glad you like that one, it is very close to what I was trying for.
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I like the shots from last year, but I prefer these, with the strong feeling of movement on the pool’s surface. And of these, I prefer the pool in the third shot.
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Hi Melinda. It is an interesting split in the preferences today. Which confirms for me that another crack at the HDR processing might be worth a try.
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I like your photos partly because they show an ocean landscape adjacent to the North Pacific. Vancouver, where I live, is situated on a rainy industrialized inlet far inland from the Pacific
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Hi Richard. I know what you mean, but I think there are a lot of great pictures to be taken along the Vancouver ocean front too, just not quite the same.
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