Tag: HDR

Moving Toward Mirrorless — Camera Features

It’s a great time to be a photographer! Nikon, Canon, Pentax, Olympus, Fuji, and Sony are pushing the engineering envelope. Each company gives us something new to keep ahead of their competition. We benefit, as photographers, with great new gadgets and features.

Problem is, though, there is no camera with every amazing feature. We have to settle on the features that are important to our shooting. My important features are not going to be the same as your important features. We each have to find the machine that works for us.

I’m testing the Olympus OM-D E-M1 ii and OM-D M1X for a month.

Each of these camera bodies has interesting features that I might use in regular shooting.

Here’s my opinion and some test results:

Focus stacking – This is nice! I’ve done focus stacking with software and love the results. Focus stacking in the camera, though, is something I’ve wanted to try for a long time.

Both the OM-D E-M1 ii and OM-D M1X gave amazing results.

  • Dayflower focus stacked at f/5
  • Dayflower not stacked at f/5
  • Dayflower focus stacked at f/5
  • Dayflower not stacked at f/5
  • morning glory focus stacked at f/5.
    Notice the camera has cropped.
  • morning glory not focus stacked at f/5
  • Mushroom focus stacked at f/5.
    Notice the cropping and detail on the back wall.
  • Mushroom not stacked at f/5
  • Mushroom focus stacked at f/5.
    In camera cropping.
  • Mushroom not stacked at f/5
  • Loblolly pine cone focus stacked at f/4.
    In camera cropping cut off the top.
  • Loblolly pine cone not stacked at f/4
  • Loblolly pine cone focus stacked at f/4.
    Cropped in camera.
  • Loblolly pine cone no stacked at f/4

Below are the individual pieces of the stacked morning glory.

Below are the individual pieces of the stacked dayflower shown above.

Lessons learned when working with both cameras. (1) Be sure to click OK to each option in the set-up process. There are several steps. (2) Confirm you’re in Focus Stacking by looking for the BRKT icon at the top of the view finder. (3) Turn off RAW/Jpg since this causes the camera to work extra and takes longer to process the finished picture. (4) The finished picture is a large Jpg. (5) In-camera focus stacking is lens dependent. Doesn’t work with every lens.

Below is a photo of a gemstone loaned to me by a friend.

This image had to be stacked in Photoshop because I used a lens that was not compatible with in-camera lens stacking.

The individual photos that made up the above image are show below.

There’s a bit to learn with Olympus focus stacking but it’s pretty easy. The camera settings include how many photos to take and focus differential. A large subject like the ruby needs a wider differential.

Silent shooting – This is a nice feature and on the Olympus it’s really silent.  I’ve used this at two weddings during the vow exchange. There’s no sound from the camera. Beware though — This is a great way to fire off 50 shots without knowing it.  Heck of a time deleting those buggers.

HDR – The cameras do this. In-camera HDR has become standard these days.

Handheld High Res – use f/2.8 to f/8 and fire off 16 shots.  Gives tons of DOF.  I tried in the office and worked well.  I’ll post more results once I get out in a grand landscape. Stay tuned!

Keystone Composition – like using a tilt-shift lens.  Adjust the foreground or background to move forward or backward.  Straighten the sides from left to right.  Worked well in the office but I need to test on a grand landscape. Watch this space.

Thank for reading and subscribe so you’ll see my next post. Feel free to ask questions or make comments below.

My thanks once again to the folks at Olympus and Hunt’s Photo & Video for letting me borrow this equipment.

Vacation Photography — Remove All Those Tourists — Well, maybe

Some say that HDR, or high-dynamic range, is a great way to remove tourists from our photos taken in busy vacation locations.  Well, maybe sometimes.

First some explanations.  HDR is high-dynamic range photography.  Our eye sees 22-stops of light but the camera can capture about 5-stops.  HDR images allow us to photograph details in the shadows while still maintaining details in the highlights.

To create a HDR photo, we take 2 or more photos from the same location and vary the exposure.  The examples below have been created from seven photos.  The exposures range from balanced light meter to -3-stops all the way to +3-stops.

HDR software has an option to deghost or remove people.  Deghosting removes people from the final photo if those people didn’t appear in the same spot in all the photos.  There’s usually a scale so we can vary the intensity of deghosting.  I’ve set the deghosting to maximum on each image.

You see that people are still in my photo of the busy street in San Gimignano, Italy.  The only person who stood still through all seven photos was the man in the gray windbreaker on the left.  Everyone else moved.  The lady in the orange coat walked straight at the camera through all seven photos.  The man with the umbrella walked across the scene from right to left.

In conclusion, the crowded street is still crowded with people.  The different software, though, handled processing in a variety of ways.

 

San Gimignano Italy KAC5699_HDR_aurora
This is an HDR image created with Macphun’s Aurora HDR software.

San Gimignano Italy KAC5699_HDR_nik
This is an HDR image created from the same files but processed with Nik’s  HDR Efex software.  Notice that there’s a half person on the left and two half people on the right.  We call these “ghosts.”  All of the HDR software offer a deghosting option.

San Gimignano Italy KAC5699-HDR_PS
Same files processed in Photoshop’s Adobe Camera Raw HDR feature.  Notice there is no ghosting.  The man with the umbrella in the center of the photo doesn’t appear in that location in any of the other examples.

Here are the seven photos used to build these HDR photos.

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