Monthly Archives: August 2006

More on single image tone mapping

Technique

A useful technique for managing dynamic range.

I made mention of the single image capabilities of the tone mapping Photoshop plug-in from Photomatix here.

This technique may not be as effective as using three images – under exposed, normal and overexposed – but is ideal when the subject is moving or when older pictures have to be restored. For film user I would think it is invaluable.

When I first got my Canon 5D one of the early excursions made with it was to Limekiln State Park to test the image stabilization in the 24-105mm ‘L’ lens. It proved remarkably effective and I took a bunch of pictures at 1/4 – 1/15 second or so using just a monopod for support.

That experience is recounted here.

Originally published here the pictures may have been blur free but suffered from the most horrible loss of detail in the highlghts and shadows. So I went back and applied single image tone mapping to the twelve best with the results you can see here.

I have found it’s very easy to overdo things and step over the line to the garish, so I tend to leave the ‘Strength’ slider at the default of 40% (this one has a high ‘garish risk’) and generally crank up the ‘Luminosity’ and ‘Color Saturation’ sliders a tad. If the overall image is too dark a tweak of the ‘White Clip’ slider to the right usually suffices. After saving, a final adjustment of Levels (Apple-L) in Photoshop is all that is needed. You can see the plug-in sliders here:

A very useful tool to have in the photographer’s tool chest.

QTVR panoramas on my web site

Panoramas, QTVR

Time to make these a page on the site.

I have assembled some of my recent panoramas on my web site and, to make them easily accessible, have added a Menu option on the Main Page. Click the Menu then click on ‘The Panoramas’.

Alternatively, you can go directly to the panorama index page by clicking here. Recommended especially for Safari users, as this web bowser is especially bad at refreshing its cached history of web pages.

Can panoramas be photographic fine art? I have absolutely no doubt – if art is something that evokes emotions and feelings, then the answer has to be a resounding Yes. Who could not thrill to the strains of Wagner’s Tristan and Isolde in Redwood Valhalla?

Another sound panorama

Panoramas

Not quite Renoir, but it will do for now.

Renoir’s Bal au Moulin de la Galette is as good as it gets. Suffused with warmth, gaiety, movement, sheer joy, modern crowd scenes simply cannot improve on this masterpiece.

But Renoir did not have QTVR + sound, though he came awfully close. I swear I can hear the revellers in his magnificent canvas. And look how tightly he crops his composition!

Here is my own imitation.


Click the image.

Strong foregrounds make for strong panoramas

Panoramas

Close foreground details makes for heightened drama.

I’m learning that QTVR panoramas are similar to using a very wide angle lens in conventional photography. Meaning that if the foreground is devoid of close, sharp details, likely as not the result will be disappointing.

The broken limb in this example – visible when the panorama first opens, was so close to the fish eye lens that it actually touched the front element at one point as I tried to gain a reasonably solid position for the tripod in what has to be years of dead leaves on the ground. Once again HDR techniques were used in this very challenging lighting.


Click the image.

Thrill to the sights and sounds of racing Porsches

Panoramas

Your intrepid panographer checks in from the Laguna Seca racetrack paddock.

Next weekend sees the Monterey Historics with Monterey and Pebble Beach overrun with tourists ogling the million dollar machinery on display and for sale.

The Laguna Seca track is as bad – hour long queues to get in.

The smart money goes to the racetrack the weekend before where all is calm, all the cars are there and twenty visitors turn up. Entrance to everything is free. I’m fortunte that the track is just 100 miles north of home. The mechanics and drivers – many of them retired famous racers – are relaxed, friendly and very accommodating. Until you have seen GP motorbikes or old Formula One cars take the Corkscrew at full chat you have not lived. As great race track corners go, perhaps only the Casino Hairpin in Monaco is more famous.

The paddock contains everything from true amateurs with no budget and one car trailered in to multi-million dollar marketing operations which think nothing of thrashing their pristine $2mm Ferrari Testa Rossas around the track at race speeds.

I took the attached yesterday in the Griot’s tent – more racing Porsches and the like than you could shake a stick at.

And in case you want to know, the sound track is of four great Porsches (aren’t all Porsches great?) – the 904, the 911 turbo, the 935 and the fabulous 956.


Click the image

The sounds come from four tracks and were joined end to end using a fine free application named Audacity.

The mechanics were nice enough to allow me, clunky tripod and pano head and all, into their tent.

One ‘pro’ with a Nikon and a two foot long lens – more boring pix of cars on the track – eyed my strange panorama rig with interest but male pride prevented him from asking what the hell I was doing. Shame – he might have learned something.

What on earth possessed me to sell my pristine 1967 911?

The author’s 1967 911 with girl. I miss the car.