Around here, that means winter has arrived. That means we’re in for 6 months of cold and gray. 
This is really cool. What I’m finding out is that, even if I only take one shot of a scene, as long as I don’t blow out the highlights, the sensor on my camera does a pretty fine job of recording all the information in both the shadows and highlights. The file just has to be processed properly in order to display all of it. An 8-bit monitor just can’t do that without some pretty sophisticated mathematics. Thank goodness for open source software!
First, a really yummy steak at Ruby Tuesday’s. Then Christmas tree shopping, thanks to our bank’s rewards program. Then Starbucks for some java. Next stop, the movies.
This is probably just about the coolest thing since sliced bread.
Original picture as shot with an increase in the exposure to bring out some detail in the shadows. As you can see, doing so immediately blows out the detail in the sky and the sky reflections in the water, and the trees in the background are pretty washed out. There’s also still a lot of shadow area that is lacking detail.
Enter the concept of High Dynamic Range, which brings the world of photography a bit closer to what the eye actually sees (although this does have a touch of surrealism to my eye). Take multiple shots of the same scene, expose some to give detail in the shadows, some to give detail in the highlights, and merge them on your computer at home.
I’m pretty impressed. I think I’ll keep playing around with this and see what happens.
Here are a “few” of my favorite fall pictures this year. A lot of them were taken on two covered bridge “tours” several weeks apart. If you pick up the Ohio Historical Society’s Covered Bridges book, make sure you have a good map because a lot of them are on tiny little back roads, and while the book gives the location, there aren’t any directions.
My favorite of several fall leaf still lifes.
Some of the ornamental grass in my yard at sunset.
My namesake.
First covered bridge tour, Route 26 near Marietta.
Second covered bridge tour, making a rough circle to the north of Newark
