just say "NO"!!!

Off the topic of my normal stuff, odd discovery is that just like the "Hunchback of Notre Dame" Paris today is overrun with Gypsy's. Am tossing out this tidbit as a commentor-blog pal noted he will be in Paris in a few more weeks. Here you go Wil...even what they look like.

When I first visit a new city I like to pick up a local tour to get a lay of the land and a feel for how things work. Interesting enough but the guide made it clear to heed the signs in Paris regarding "pickpockets at work".

He let us know that Paris is overrun with "Gypsy's" (his term not mine) from Romania that wear long skirts, travel in packs and approach tourists, especially us American varieties and present us with a card asking if we "speak English". Its a twist on the "I'm a deaf mute variety.

His instructions were to tell them "NO" loudly and clearly and to walk away.

Essentially if you take the bait they watch where you keep your money when you pull out your wallet to give them the odd Euro. Since the travel in packs the others watch where you kept your cash and when you start to move they swoop in and take it from the last hiding place you kept your dinero.

Sure enough when we got the Eiffel Tower (sounds like 'tour effay el' in french for a quick phonetics lesson) they were there in hoards. They were in a group of about 4 going from corner to corner presenting their card, getting some donations from suckers outside our group.

Not sure how it started, but we got the bright idea to sound off "No" in a 3 stooges harmony. We all laughed and it frustrated the hell out of the Gypsy's and their pals in the background.

So much for your education on street smarts in Paris, I have lots of work to do, LOTs and I need to get busy.

Wow Europe was incredible...

The travel gawds smiled upon us this last week in Europe...London was gorgeous and a warming trend started when we arrived. From the low 70's to nearly 80 by weeks end in Paris. All the spring bulb's were up and showing off their color...fields of daffodils, tulips all over the place. This visit only reaffirmed my view on London being one of the most charming and friendly cities. Paris certainly is a close second for this crazed American that can speak "tres un peu francais" and found no difficulties communicating with anyone.

HDR is fun, you can certainly do a lot with it in terms of presenting both "natural" and the "surreal". The couple I worked on today addressed the natural world, quite nicely I think in preserving details in the shadows. In the case of the "London Eye" it even does a nice job in keeping details in the cloudy sky. Saturation certainly wins across the spectrum in both.

Anyway jet lag is taking its toll and after downloading and sorting images I am too beat to do much more today.

Enjoy "Houses of Parliment" and "London Eye" for a teaser on the images done this last week while on "holiday"

Art supporting the other arts...

No secret that I support all the other non-profit art groups out there. When I was approached by Jill Maglione, Vice-president of the "Happy Hour Theatre Group" for a piece to be auctioned at the upcoming fundraiser I not only said yes...but offered up some ideas on how the group can raise money.

The "Fundraiser Fete" by the "Happy Hour Theatre Group" is set for April 6, 2007 @8PM. It will be held at the NoHo Actors Studio, 5215 Lankershim Blvd (at Magnolia), North Hollywood, 91601. Reservations and more info can be had on this gala event by calling 818-206-4050.

It promises to be a fun and cheap evening at only $10/person. That gets you drinks, munchies (they were fancy and called it hors d'oeuvre even). There will be local artists present, art all over the place, live music and a special performance from a Magic Castle magician! And...there will be raffles and door prizes too. Go, "Dress to Impress" as their invitation says and have a great time.

Also...a final tidbit, since "Happy Hour Theatre Group" is a non-profit group as defined in 501 (c)(3) your $10/person is tax deductible.

I'd be there as it really sounds like fun, but alas I'll be half way to London. At least if you go you can see one of my pictures taken in the Yosemite Valley at sunrise a few years ago "Merced River Fog"

Tired and Hung

Am all nicely hung at the Monrovia Coffee Company. Good news is that I have 3 nice groups of three and space for a single impact piece. AM likely going to run with the first HDR of the Monrovia train station as that should stop people nicely in their tracks. Hanging it around 8AM Tuesday so if you are an ambitious soul come out and see me!

A couple quick snaps from my trusty Che-ez Snap blogger. The quality is pretty precocious...enjoy it for what it is...all glorious .3MP under $20 (at that price its worth it for the usb plug). You get the point...my images on a wall...

More good news, I run at the Coffee Company through 6/9/07.

Prepping, packing, even a little shooting...


Show prep goes well have 3 more to get the wires on so I can hang at 3:30. As I mentioned a couple of days ago I am hanging today for a 3 month run at the Monrovia Coffee Company. The information:

April 2 - June 1, 2007

Monrovia Coffee Company, 425 S Myrtle Ave, Monrovia

Weekdays 6AM-10PM, Weekends 7AM-11PM

It was such a nice morning I had to go out in the garden for a break, camera in hand of course. The Bearded Iris I shot is from a rhizome brought to this country by my mothers, friend's grandmother from the Ukraine at the turn of the last century. This hardy old stock Iris puts the hybrids to shame. This Iris has cuttings and offspring from all over the United States from where it was first planted in Michigan's Upper Peninsula (yes...I'm a yupper by birth). Here in So Cal it naturalizes so fast it has to be seperated and replanted every 2-3 years. If you want cuttings...ask me in the fall!

Anyway Enjoy a couple shots of "Peach Blossom" and "Bearded Iris".

Twilight skies are still blue!

I found another reason to like HDR this morning while working over images I shot last night. Just after sunset there is still some very intense blues in the sky and Photomatix HDR actually does an awesome job of preserving those tones, or at least has the data there so you can pull it out and manipulate it for the final image. I was out from shortly after 8PM, about 45 minutes or so after sunset and those images captured in the first few minutes of shooting had skies with some really intense blues. By 8:30 the images were lacking that blue but picked up a very strange, almost cyan hue from the direction of downtown LA which is a nice recording of the light pollution emitted by the metro area at large.

What I am totally digging is the surreal images that can come out of this entire process. The color of light provided by nature vs man is just another extension of an area I've been exploring for a while. HDR has opened up a few more ways to communicate what I see. I really like the way it over emphasizes color contrasts....rich blue skies and a radioactive glow to that man made, or added by man to nature by accident in the form of light pollution. This is a path I do believe I will meander down a bit more and explore in the coming weeks.

I do see the potential to explore more at dusk as the range of colors and natural contrast has the potential to produce some really striking images, especially if I can capture a moon rise. Imagine...details across the scene the way your mind interprets it as opposed to limiting the detail in shadow or highlights because your recording media can't capture that wide of a range.

All this is really a cool tool. It really mucks up the debate between the silver vs digital photographers out there though. There are belligerent camps on both sides proclaiming what is or isn't photography anymore. For me its the same, just different tools to produce the final image. Both groups do their share of manipulations in camera its how they post process in film or from a digital image that differs.

The final image works or it doesn't. My deal is that if the image stops someone in their tracks whether it be an unaltered photograph (whatever that is) or one that is several combined and altered digital image, it worked!

I can tell you this much though, if I were to shoot on film this bracketing would have cost me a fortune in materials and lab fees before I even got to the point where I could start printing. Thank gawd for those 8Gig or better cards too as RAW files are huge.

Anyway enjoy a few of my shots from last night. Wound up exploring more the relationship of color and the man vs nature hard edged intrusions.

Double up on the Starbucks and lemon bars...its going to be a long night

I started with a Meyer Lemon tree so overloaded I needed to do some harvesting. What better way to get a sugar buzz and use up a dozen lemons that that. I used Ina Garten's Lemon Bar recipe from Barefoot Contessa...its the SUGGA BOMB!

I did it and glad I did. Tired, but the first of the images from tonight's shoot down at the Monrovia Train station with an eye towards exploiting HDR has me totally amped. (Having a Venti Sumatra and a lemon bar helped).

I just got back, downloaded it all from the trusty cam and loaded one image to see if HDR would do for night photography that I hoped it would. IT did! I got a final image that first appears flat as so much detail is recorded across the board from absolute black to white...can't help that as the lighting is crap....sodium vapor on one side, fluorescent in some shops, HID or incadescent bulbs on the cars. Its really extreme contrast. HDR pulls it all together so you have great detail across the board though the raw HDR is very flat in terms of contrast. Post processing helps control the colors and all the shifts due to the light sources and wow.

The interesting thing for me was the surreal haunting images you get at night anyway. HDR really just takes it to the next level.

For you techies the base exposure at ISO 400, shot raw with a relatively large f~stop of 5.6 and exposure of 2.5 seconds. I used the Canon EF20-34mm wide angle zoom and the effective focal length for the shot was 32MM, manually focused. (I love the elongated perspective of that lens). The bracketed exposures at 2 stops over and under were .6 and 10 seconds.

So here is the first of the series shot at the train station. Love abandoned buildings, like shooting them at night...and HDR makes the images even more surreal and haunting. Anyone wanna take a run up some of the ghost towns on Route 66 the next full moon? Image those old places with a rising or setting moon. Moonrise Hernandez Ala Ansel Adams may get a run for its money.

Anyway...enjoy "Monrovia Train Station" while I finish sorting and HDR'ing some more images. (If you want to see the jpeg average for comparison...ask and I'll send you a down sized).

Show prep is tedium defined.

Man as much fun as it is showing somewhere, getting ready is the killer. I open Monday evening at the Monrovia Coffee Company. Only 2 more to mats and 3 images to frame. Wahoo...that is a chore.

Am excited too, Paint N Play where I have 3 pieces hanging wants to showcase me and my art one Saturday evening in April when I return from vacation. I'll keep you posted on that one as I plan to do a lot of night shooting in Paris and London using HDR. Could have some interesting things to show at that event!

Just to make it easy on you where to see my stuff real time. Let me know if you are going and I'll arrange to meet you there and even spring for a cup of coffee:

February 1 - April 30, 2007

Paint N Play Gallery

418 S Myrtle Avenue

Monrovia, CA 91016

Tues through Sunday 12pm - 8 PM

April 2 - June 1, 2007

Monrovia Coffee Company

425 S Mytle Avenue

Monrovia, CA 91016

Weekdays 6AM-10PM, Weekends 7AM-11PM

After being stooped over my work bench all day cutting mats and framing I need to get out and do some shooting, enjoy the near full moon in and around Monrovia. The old train station is still as decrepid and charming as ever maybe I'll make it down there tonight. Certainly there is some potential for HDR to be maximized down there!

Stay tuned and catch you all later!

ROSES!!!

Rich Color

Rich Scents

Saturated color, muted color there's such a range of color and visual excitement in the spring garden. 2 Austin English Roses, 1 climber and 1 hybrid tea. I hope to see it all peak before I leave for the UK and Paris in 2 weeks!

Nurturing the other passions...
AKA taking care of my inner gearhead. Sometimes I just need to switch gears and let another "hobby" (which is another polite way to refer to an obsession that costs a fair amount of money) take over for a bit. Its these other sidebars that make us human and keep us going.
Today was just a gorgeous morning, sun up early, warm and I just had the urge to drive. Not my daily driver but my nice old antique Buick. I pulled of the car cover gave it a quick wash and a polished up the chrome then off I went for for a zip around town and on the freeway to scare some old ladies, small children and the odd dog. Added bonus is I set off a couple of car alarms on some rice rockets as I cruised Old Town Monrovia.

You see, this old car that was bought from my neighbors estate is a wonderful 1972 Buick Centurion "Formal Coupe". The restoration included keeping the "Pasadena Senior Center" sticker in the rear window, stock color, stock everything or at least period correct. Well, I stuck to that plan for the most part. The inner juvenile delinquent ruled and off the GS455 cranking out 330HP are 3" pipes running through flowmasters. NOTHING will ever sound as good as a big block V8 when the four barrel opens up on the freeway. Nothing.

A bit of history for you. The Buick Centurion was marketed as the "bankers hotrod" and mid-range in the Buick line up. It ran for only 3 years (the first oil embargo of 1973 brought an end to it). 1972 there were some 110,000 units sold (of a production run of over a million Buicks that year). Of them only 35,000 were the "Formal Coupe" and very few survive. 1972 there were two 455ci V8's available (that's 7.5Litres to those of you who don't know what cubic inches are anymore). One was the standard 250hp through a single exhaust, the other was the GS (Gran Sport) with 330hp through true dual exhausts. My car has been authenticated and is registered with the national Centurion registry. http://www.buickcenturion.com. More of my car with hits testicular ornamentation can be found there too: http://www.buickcenturion.com/1972/frank_z/
Its now back on my driveway waiting for another excuse to head out this afternoon just to blow out the cobwebs...and at 3.50/gal for premium it does a lot of sitting these days.
Enjoy "Da BU"....

Hiss clonk hiss clonk hiss clonk

The sound of the trusty old printers is slowly putting me to sleep. Getting maximum dpi on the trusty old inkjet takes for ever to get a lot of big prints done. But I am on the final print.

I open at the Monrovia Coffee Company on or about April 3 or 4th. This is an interesting venue to show case art for the members of the Monrovia Art Festival Association. Lots of foot traffic, a gracious host who doesn't charge us a dime to hang in her business. No gallery commissions either does it get better than that? Maybe but its the closest thing to nirvana I have had in a while. Tentative run date is April 5 through June 5, 2007. I'll post a note here when I am installed and the run dates.

In prepping this show I am keeping with the rule of 3's. 3 themed groups with 3 images in each. AM working with a floral group, an impressionist landscape group (this sorta boldly crosses more to digital art than straight photography) and a Monochromatic Color Spot group. Most of the images in the show are those I have blogged in the last month or so...that means a lot of really fresh stuff being hung.

The latter group is one I have been exploring for a while and most of the images were very well received (IE I blew them out the door) at the fall Celebrate the Arts in Monrovia. So I worked them a bit differently. I've even switched papers to a nice matte finish that tends to have a much nicer saturation with the dark tones as well as a cleaner finish in the highlights. Suits what I need for these images much better than traditional glossy paper or the watercolor papers I use.

Anyway "Henhouse Eggs" is the last to roll off the printer today!

Icons and graffiti

Venice has this really cool area where local graffiti artists can paint to their hearts content on some short concrete walls and cones that remind me some how of the Moai from the Easter Islands.

The palm tree is one of the icons of California cultivated in tv and movies...you've seen it, palm tree lined streets, palm tree lined pools, palm tree lined beaches...you get the picture.

Add in some color and they change their character completely. At Venice today there is an area where even the trees weren't safe from the graffiti artists cans and they became more than an icon, they became art all onto their own right playing into the scene.

One thing that struck me while meandering about was this scene were an elderly woman was parked on the edge of the basketball courts under the palms. I can't tell you why the scene haunted me, but it did and I grabbed a shot of it too.

Without out further blather on my part...LA Icons, the palm trees

Water sports and surfer stuff

Shooting surfers and others playing on the water on a bright sunny day is a challenge as the contrast is so much higher than your media can record you run the risk of losing shadow details completely or blowing out your highlights. Shooting on a gray end of winter day solves the contrast issue...there is next to none, but you loose color saturation and your color shift blue. All an easy fix in the day of photoshop.

Shooting things out in the water are tough as you don't have the usual elements like trees or buildings to set up framing and provide visual cues to scale. You do get lines running about, converging or splitting that help you frame and come up with cues that the viewer uses to establish scale. Allowing waves to curl, bend on their own and wait for the right moment to snap the shutter is time consuming but it does make the difference in the final image....drama for the idea draws the viewer in and that is your reward. Of course, just watching the waves is a nice way to relax so the image can be the added bonus.

Enjoy the Venice Beach surfers and boogey boarders from earlier in the day today.

No Airbus A380...but I got the beach instead

Aye carumba, the commute gawds and those that govern nerdy events like the A380 landing at LAX were not in sync. It took me nearly 2 hours to get to LAX...I was just blocks from parking and viewing when it passed overhead. The thing is huge, it was early and as I was in the middle of a turn in traffic I couldn't even grab the camera phone to snap a pic. Damn....did I tell you it was huge? It looked like a mini-strip mall on wings gliding out of the overcast skies. Amazing.

Anyway, all was not lost. I was minutes from Venice Beach, my personal mecca for spiritual renewal and I headed there next.

For a winter day there was plenty of stuff to see and do. The skies were heavy overcast which affects the color of light. IE it tends to be bluer, less saturated and less contrast. In the old days you would stick on a warming filter if you were shooting slide film that would return some resemblance to natural color to the scene and work with the lack of contrast and saturation. Luckily those days are past and we can enlist photoshop to address those areas simple filters can't.

Venice in my book is one of those rare places where all sorts of humanity converge, co-exist for but a moment and feed of each others energies. (It's also a great place to take your relatives from the mid-western and plains states so they can see the slice of life that can shock and awe but I am wandering off topic). Anyway, the people, the color and the energy always bring me back refreshed in spite of the traffic I have to slog through.

I shot a lot of stuff today, little stuff, big stuff, surfer stuff, street stuff and will need to put it all up sort of by themes.

warm and fuzzy

Sitting at a ball game this afternoon I noticed the bunting had a nice flow. Using selective focus helped blur out some annoying background stuff that was more "noise" than important detail.

Playing around a bit more I opted to let the balloons drift of into a nice fuzzy too. Doing so let them just become some nice colored shapes rather than a detail. Doing so let the bunting and its changes in direction become the main energy source to tease your eye.

Getting there isn't easy with an automated point and shooter, but the SLR's have the "creative" wheel that lets you make decisions on how you want to show. Here I took the "aperture value" dialed in a low number that limited the dept of focus. Gave me the fuzzy balloons with details in the bunting I wanted.

Bet you were glad to see something other than HDR. Stay tuned as Monday I plan on being in viewing distance of the behemoth Airbus 380 makes it maiden voyage arrival here at LAX. I learned about it at MetrobloggingLA. I remember seeing the Concorde glide over Big Ben and Westminster years ago and was just in awe over that beauty. Now its the polar opposite beast flying over, hope it thrills as much.

Until then...enjoy "bunting and balloons".

More from the Canyon,



Hdr has its moments...enjoy Monrovia Canyon and its waterfall (which is pretty dry, lucky there is any falls at all considering how little rain we had this winter). Its all leafing out and turning green, pretty nice way to spend a day just walking around and admiring it all!

Learning is fun, a walk in the woods is better

I'm still learning the range of capability HDR (High Dynamic Range) photography. Working in the digital realm has so many advantages and the tools out there just increase how fast and how varied you can make the final image.

Today I hiked up Monrovia Canyon, in the San Gabriel Mountains above my house. I debated a bit then left the tripod home. I figured I'd try standing really still and where possible brace against trees or rocks. I was too lazy to bring the tripod and knew that the 2 foot wide ledges I wanted to shoot from wouldn't have the space to have a tripod fully extended. Wish I had brought it as there were many shots that I took where there was just enough movement that the multiple exposures needed for HDR were too far out of registration to be workable as a straight forward photograph. (Call me a bit anal but I want to be able to nail down HDR before I start pushing it further...makes retracing steps easier when you fully understand a process).

Today's shooting was in a location where the sides of the canyon were in shadow with either very dark granite sides or near black Canyon and Coast Oaks with the creek and near white skinned Alders in the sunlight. Difficult to shoot in, even more so when you are working in a medium with a narrow contrast range such as digital (or ?chrome silver based films).

So while I sort through my images I have one of the first I finished posted for right now. This morning it was really foggy and starting to clear when I hit the canyon. The sun had just started to crest the ridge. Leaving areas in intense sunlight with others still in shadow. There were areas where the fog remained which HDR helped better define details like the line between fog and clear sky. HDR really captures the clarity and saturation of color the way a single exposure, even when done well in RAW.

I have learned the hard way, for the last time....you can't hand hold a camera and get 3 exact framed images. Add in the wind causing ripples in the leaves, your registration gets out of whack way to fast. Tripods are a must, no matter the weight and difficult terrain.

Anyway...Monrovia Canyon Morning...I shot it all RAW. The HDR image was post processed and saved as jpeg, low res for your viewing here. The jpeg side started as a single raw image, post processed to get it as close to the HDR as possible in the mid-tones and converted to jpeg at the same low res for more of an apple-to-apple comparison. The RAW image for both middle range of the HDR and the one labled JPEG was the same file....the average metered exposure for the scene.

Enjoy....

Just a few more from my garden this morning, Fortnight Lily, Geranium and Jasmine.

Spring has Sprung...almost

OK one of my passions on the side is gardening, landscaping design and English Roses. The latter I was turned onto when a friend of mine started growing the David Austin English Roses. They are these wonderful hybrids matching old roses with modern roses where they have the look and aroma's of old roses but repeat bloom like modern hybrid teas. I got out of control when I was introduced to a friend of hers that is a master pruner over at the Huntington Library in San Marino. Tamora is my favorite of the breed but its not in bloom, yet. One of his earlier, semi-doubles "Peach Blossom" is starting to bloom and I have included pics in today's entry.

Shooting in my garden is one of the added benefits to all the work. I've been at it for years and enjoy it tremendously. I love to take the viewer into the floral and let you really see it up close and personal. Its startling on how much detail is in any given plant when you take the time to look at it.

Isolating the flower or plant material can be tricky as the back ground can have a lot of unwanted stuff. Controlling lighting at times needs to be done and for that I use reflectors and shade cloth to keep the contrast within reason on the plant itself. The best reflector yet is a matte white poster board as you can bend to "wrap" the light around the blossom and keep just enough contrast to keep the details.

Letting the backgrounds go completely out of focus helps keep the flower the center of attention. Those backgrounds I manage too at times with variegated backdrops made from poster board to keep the distractions to a minimum.

Time of day affects the quality of light. Mornings and afternoons the shadows tend to be a bit "bluer" which isn't a problem if your flowers are in sunlight. The warmer tones of early morning really make the blossoms pop against the bluer backgrounds of the shaded areas. Always a plus in my book when nature provides the drama in the scene.

Enjoy the "Peach Blossom" in its phases of bloom!

Bad News, Good News kind of week

OK...for those of you shooting with a digital slr you know the tricks calm place for lens changes, body facing down while lens is off, use only a soft squeeze bulb to clean out the sensor cavity if needed. In my haste for stuff last week I goofed majorly and discovered it while shooting. My sensor was dirty and when I got back down the hill was cleaning lenses to prevent further contamination etc., when for reasons I don't know I grabbed a can of "dust off" and shot it in the cavity. My luck it was just humid enough that the blast of cold air instantly condensed and a wave of moisture hit the sensor and "fogged" it with propellant.

Sadly, Canon was no use....several days turn around, no guaranteed completion date, and a couple of hundred dollars to the rescue. A little research and talking with local pro-shops I discovered a little gem in nearby Pasadena who not only had turn around times of same day to a couple days max and inexpensive on top of it. Cleaning up the sensor was a total of 3 days (dropped off Wednesday AM and picked up Friday afternoon) for $65. And they did awesome work that included a pic taken before and after cleaning. So...the info on this gem:

General Camera, 2218 E Colorado Blvd, Pasadena CA 91107, 626 449-4533. Ask for Sabrina as she was the gem who helped me out.

Anyway, today I got back up into the mountains and shot once again with HDR in mind. I am discovering that the HDR only can do so much to in terms of blending, after that its up to your eye and use of Photoshop for the final blending to bring in a natural appearing image.

I shot "Alder Creek" using HDR post processing to blend 3 images, average exposure and bracketed plus or minus 2 stops. That final file is then post processed in Photoshop to restore some contrast and sharpening.

I do like HDR. The color saturation is much more pronounced through out an image. In this scene there is the added problem of light rocks surrounded by shadow where in the avg exposure jpeg most of the detail is lost and the sky lacks a lot of color. In the hdr not only do the light rocks have a lot of detail, there is more detail in the shadows and color overall is very saturated with a rich blue sky. More natural in terms of what I saw rather than what the camera captured on an average exposure.

Now its off to explore how far I can push limits with the program. This is getting interesting. In the mean time enjoy "alder creek" and note the differences between the HDR final image and the JPEG Avg exposure.

Wow...HDR by Photomatix works

I spent the day, well until about 1 when I needed to head down the hill, shooting with HDR in mind. Recall if you will HDR means High Dynamic Range and Photomatix is a program that allows us non photoshopCS2 types to explore that aspect of digital imaging.

To a large degree this program is pretty idiot proof (and yours truly needs all the help he can get some days). It does take a lot of finesse to get images that don't have a lot of ghosting or odd highlights at tone boundary's. As time goes by I'll get a better understanding on what hdr can or can't do. The finesse will come as I work with the program and learn its limitations better.

Today's project was to go out and pick through situations that are buggers to shoot, high contrast, shadows in naturally dark objects and highlights on very white objects all in the same scene. A digital camera I've discovered has a narrow range of contrast it can handle not unlike silver based chromes (aka slide films like ektachrome). So up into the San Gabriel Mountains I went to shoot in the worst possible conditions for extremes of contrast to see what HDR could do.

After a little exploring the other day it is painfully obvious that if you are to avoid any problems with ghosting and registration you must shoot with a tripod. Something I have only rarely done as it prevents me from easily and quickly bouncing around to get just the right angle and framing on a subject. Its a personal preference, kind of like a chihauhau type pooch...I have to bounce around freely and a tripod slows me down. That aside, it is invaluable when shooting with HDR in mind so I worked with it.

I used the recommended 2 f-stop bracketing from recommended exposure value which is the default in photomatix. I shot them in RAW which is a format where all the detail in the scene is preserved in its raw or "as shot" state by the camera with no compression which produces very big files. Fortunately the EOS20D does the bracketing automatically so once in place is bang, bang, bang on the shutter release and its done.

For Alder Creek I took the 3 exposures and used the "Shadow and Light - enhanced" tool to blend the 3 RAW files into one image. I saved the file then opened it with Photoshop and did my post processing for color balance and contrast cleaning up. I was impressed with the final image.

For comparison purposes I took the RAW file with average metering, adjusted it with Canon's "Digital Photo Professional" and adjusted the white balance to neutral then adjusted the brightness which then was converted to a jpeg for editing in photoshop. The final adjustments were then to refine color balance, saturation and contrast.

The differences in Shadow detail and highlight detail while preserving a natural luminosity was very good with the HDR image. HDR also did a very good job in keeping highlight detail....look a the detail in the extremely light gray alders in the background. Both involved the use of the base EV RAW file and somewhere along the line the HDR file lost some of the color richness to the simply converted RAW to JPEG used in the comparison. In this image at least the richness in the red/browns was lost in the HDR conversion more so than the blue/greens. Not that its objectionable, but my penchant for wanting deeply saturated color does make me question how much I am willing to trade for expanded gray ranges in the final image. Something to ponder and explore.

What I do see in all of this is that it will be very interesting to see how this expanded range will work into my impressionist images on watercolor paper. Also a few of my old loves, antiquated interiors and night photography may be the areas where HDR may have its greatest impact.

While I ponder it all, look at "Alder Creek" in its Base EV and HDR conversions and enjoy them on their own merits.