Feedback on HDR and other thoughts
One clarification on HDR (high dynamic range) processing: I’ve only begun to use it, trying the exposure blending (only) for now. There’s so much to explore, and like any other skill, I can see many hours will be required to figure out what works consistently, and what doesn’t (and what I want to bother with).
I want to thank the many readers who’ve emailed me on HDR and other topics recently. I’ve responded to everyone who’s emailed, but I’ve swamped with a deadline at my “day job” for another week or so. I find it a little frustrating not to be able to do much photography related stuff, including this blog, nor can I respond in as much detail as I’d prefer. Add to that continuing work on a major server overhaul and burnout from months of work...and I’m fairly well thrashed.
One reader sent a link to a gallery of gothic cathedrals by Eric Pouhier, which I think is very nice work (apparently with a P&S), making me feel downright unskilled in post processing! Other readers sent me examples of their own exceptionally fine images—very impressive stuff.
Advice—I have some advice for everyone on their own work: seeing other people’s fresh ideas can be intimidating in the sense that one’s own work can start to feel rather ordinary by comparison. I have to remind myself of this regularly, and I hope that like the proverbial blind squirrel, I find an “acorn” often enough to maintain my own self-credibility! I’m not sure I got any “acorns” in Death Valley (see below for more on that).
More advice—I’ve done “it” before, and I’m kicking myself for repeating the mistake in my recent trip to Death Valley: I stifled my creative output by using a tripod most of the time, and by making too many high resolution (but boring) stitched images, and in general making images so as to explore the equipment rather than make art. Don’t do this to yourself. To some extent I have to do this in order to write about equipment here, but I increasingly find it frustrating to work that way; I should have taken just the Nikon D3 with 3 Zeiss ZF lenses (and perhaps the Nikon 14-24) and made many more “walk around” images. Live and learn...!
(Yes, the Nikon D3, I own the Canon EOS 1Ds Mark III also and I really prefer the D3 images, even though the resolution is lower).
