Posts Tagged ‘lighthouse’

New Brighton

Wednesday, July 9th, 2008


These images I like. When I started taking pictures with my first film SLR as a wee lad, I could never understand why the disappointing colour pictures I got back from Jessops didn’t compare to the dark blue skies and lush green foregrounds I had imagined when I looked through the viewfinder. I didn’t realise that the camera wasn’t telepathic, or that the dynamic range of film was less than the dynamic range of the human eye. If I knew taking pictures was that complicated, I think I would have given up taking any pictures at all.

These images are created using a technique called HDR (High Dynamic Range) imaging. This technique lets a photographer capture something similar in colour and contrast ranges to the range the human eye experiences. I am hooked. The results look just like the pictures I imaged I would be getting back from Jessop’s when I looked through the viewfinder on that old film camera. The only slight disadvantages with this technique is that you have to shoot at least 3 separate exposures of everything, it needs fiddly processing to merge exposures into a usable image, you can’t shoot moving objects, oh, and the results are totally unpredictable. Minor details.

Click images to view larger.