PhotoWalkPro

I was working on an image the other night that I had shot in Red Rock Canyon out near Las Vegas.  I spent an afternoon shooting some HDR shots of the scenery and had processed most of them shortly after I had returned home.  This particular set of images had somehow escaped my attention so I went ahead and put it through my typical HDR workflow, Lightroom to Photoshop for HDR conversion, HDR file to Photomatix Pro for tonemapping.  The only problem is that, for some strange reason, the colors in my image went completely haywire.  I had green mountains with turquoise and purple spots in places.  I tried hard to correct the image in Photoshop, applying multiple hue and saturation adjustment layers but to no end.  The strange thing is that I have another HDR file that was created from almost the same location using the same technique.

Nothing red about those rocks

This led me to check out some other HDR files where I found another shot where large green splotches appeared in the branches of a tree.  That would be okay if it were filled with leaves but these were just branches and sky.  Just another example of tonemapping gone crazy.  I am going to try and process the same files using some alternative software applications to see if they render the same results but for now, I will just chalk this up to being “just one of those things”.  What I have learned from this is that it’s always a good idea to shoot more than one set of bracketed images, just in case you get a set that goes bad.

Check out the color blobs living in the branches

Here’s a look at another Red Rocks HDR file that went right.

When things go right it looks more like this

Just a couple of quick items for today because I know you have a ton of things to do before the weekend, or maybe that’s just me.  Anyway, I don’t know how this week turned into shameless self promotion week for me but it just seems to be working out that way.

Earlier this week I told you about my vocal appearance over at Digital Photography Life.  Well today there is an interview that I did with Jason Anderson which is up on his CanonBlogger site.  Jason has been doing a series of interviews with photographers and was nice enough to include me in the list.  So if you have about 5 minutes in your life that you don’t care about getting back, head on over to the CanonBlogger site and check it out (Jason told me that it will be posted after 8:00 AM, EST).  But more importantly, while you are there, be sure to check out the previous posts on Jason’s blog.  It is a great site with tons of information and insight (and not just on Canon stuff).  Thanks Jason for including me on the hit parade.

Einar Erlendsson, who runs the Focus on Nature Photography Workshops in Iceland dropped me an email to let me know that they have posted their 2009 workshop schedule.  Einar has been busting his hump to put together a schedule with an instructor line-up that reads like a who’s who in the world of photography.  The first workshop kicks off in July with Photoshop guru Ben Wilmore.  Following that are classes from Shephen Johnson, Joe McNally, Chris Rainier, Kevin Ames, Eddie Soloway, John Paul Caponigro, Vincent Versace, Eddie Tapp, and finally wrapping things up with Rick Sammon.  That is a monster line-up of talented photographers and instructors and it sounds 2009 is definitely the year to plan a trip to Iceland.  I can’t think of a better way to improve your photography skills than sitting in with one of these guys in a location that is as cool as Iceland (no pun intended).  I won’t kid you about the price, it’s not cheap at $4950, but it does include 5 full days of instruction, accomodations, breakfast, and transportation for the field trips.  I can tell you that I am going to start saving my loose change because I think this would really be a trip of a lifetime.  You can find out more information about the workshops, schedules, and instructors by heading over to the Focus on Nature website.

That’s it for today, thanks for stopping by and make sure you come back tomorrow for my Friday wrap-up post.

Okay, brilliant is a bit much but today I am posting a simple tutorial on how I created the studio shots of the Canon 50D and D3 for my post the other day.  All of the images were shot in my basement, which is about as far from a studio as you can get.  My lighting setup consisted of a white piece of paper on a box, a white sheet for a backdrop, one Nikon SB-600 fired though a Westcott diffusion panel to the right of the camera, and another SB-600 with the small dome diffuser to the left of the camera.  I fired them wirelessly from the camera with the pop-up flash set to commander mode.  As you can see below, My results were less than impressive.  The good thing is that the light looked great on the camera and that’s all I needed to bring it in to Photoshop and finish the shot.

Raw image of product

Here is the final shot after I processed it in Lightroom and Photoshop.  I did use one plug-in for the process, Vertus Fluid Mask 3.  This is a fantastic product for making selections of complex subjects to separate them from the background.  This wasn’t a complicated subject but it did cut down on my work time as you will see in the tutorial.  That being said, there is no reason that you couldn’t do the same thing with the selection tools for this particular image (but I’m all about getting things done so I used the Fluid Mask).  After just a few steps in Photoshop, I ended up with the image you see below.  Not bad for a basement shot.

The Post-Processed Studio Shot

To see the entire process, check out the video.

Last weekend I spent some time chatting with my buddy Scott Sherman from the Digital Photography Life podcast.  We started off playing catchup since I had not spoken with him since he and Michael Stein started up their new podcast.  The pair were the previous hosts of the Über-popular Digital Photography Show but parted ways with their network and have since joined forces with Personal Life Media.  One thing led to another and Scott asked if I wanted to do a short interview for this week’s show.  We were both excited to chat about my recent experiences with the Nikon D90 and the Canon 50D.  So what was originally supposed to be a short 10 minute interview turned into about half an hour.  We didn’t even get into photowalking.  Scott and Michael run a great show and it is always informative and entertaining.  I am very pleased that I could be a part of their second official show which follows up their inaugural broadcast with a marathon interview with my good friend, Scott Kelby.

Oh, and here’s the best part.  After my interview, Scott spent some time chatting with the folks at SmugMug, who are their first official show sponsor.  SmugMug is offering a great discount for listeners of the show (50% off of the first year of service) and if you listen all the way to the end, you can find out how to score a free camera strap, once again courtesy of the good folks at SmugMug.  Who doesn’t love FREE STUFF?

You can find the interview by searching podcasts over at the iTunes store or listen online by going to the Digital Photography Life website.  Or you can click here to jump right to the interview.  I had a great time talking to Scott and I look forward to my next appearance, if they’ll have me back.