North Avoca Three image Exposure Blend

Last nights sunset at Avoca Beach taken when out teaching a private course. Wish there was some cloud. Cloud around today… out teaching again so lets see what happens.

The Skillion, another natural exposure blend

Nothing special but still a nice shot with interesting water movement. Multiple exposure blend. Hopefully by next week I will have the Canon 16-35mm f2.8 and I can off load the 17-40mm f4 which this one was shot on.

Click the image to see the larger view.

LR/Enfuse plug in for Lightroom 2 – Exposure Fusion

A new work flow that is emerging in popular programs like Lightroom, PtGui and Photomatix Pro is the enfusing of images with different exposure values. Sure we have all done this in Photoshop with masks but these programs are now doing it for us with promising results. The above shot from the Skillion was taken with a standard +1, 0, -1 bracket and then run through Lightroom 2 using the LR/Enfuse plugin. The blend wasn’t as dramatic as I had expected but it certainly pulling in the highlights and opened up the shadow area and it kept the image looking natural which is a far cry from shooting HDR images.

When out shooting this one I bumped into Ken Duncan who was also shooting the same sunrise with his well used Linhof and doing a bit of a promo shoot for Lumix cameras. It was good to see Ken was wearing the same high quality footwear as myself… thongs.

The above image has been made into a video tutorial from the Lightroom workflow into Photoshop CS4 for final development and is available on the Rubbing Pixels website. For those interested in reading about using the same method with Photomatix Pro check out our articles and read the one written by Kevin McNeal.

Forresters Beach Sunrise Shoot

Good old Forresters Beach. It’s hard to go to this place and shoot and not to come home with something to show for your efforts. On this morning I headed out with a mate Adam who shoots with a Medium format 6×7 Pentax.

We waited for a break in the weather as it was pouring down. There was some serious dark clouds and rain coming in from the coast on the right as we shot this. (Got shots of that on the GX617). This shot was on the 5D Mark II at 17mm and was a blend of 3 exposures +1, 0 and -1 and then blended in PS.

Merewether Baths, Newcastle

A shot taken while waiting for my Newcastle Day Course to start last month.

An easy +1, 0 and -1 exposure blend put together in CS3 (I really need to upgrade to CS4).

Played around with the Render Effect filters and used Omni light to add a bit of drama to the image. Takes a fair bit of playing around to get it right. But it is worth exploring.

5D Mk II | 24-70mm f2.8 lens

The Skillion – Shutter and Exposure Blending

While teaching a two day private course over the weekend we looked at the technique of exposure blending and also shutter blending.

Made up of 6 different images of 2 different exposure values and also shot at different shutter and iso speeds to get silky water, waves curling, water veiling off rocks, dark shots, bright shots, mid tone shots, you get the idea. Great technique and heaps of fun. All shots where taken with 10 stop ND filter to get the slow exposure during the middle of the day.

Canon 5D Mark II | shot at 24mm @ F11 | several iso speeds and shutter speeds.

Bogey Hole, Newcastle Day Photo Course

I’m really liking overcast days of late, there is so much more you can do during the day in lue of a totally clear day where the light can be harsh and un flattering and the light at the end is more dramatic as well

This is a shot from my Newcastle Day course that ran last weekend (27th June) where we were looking at the benefits of slowing down your shutter speed to achieve movement effects and colour shifts to your image.

The Bogey Hole in Newcastle is just one of many great spots to shoot and in this image you can see that the chain has been removed from around the baths to stop all the fools from holding onto it in large swell for thrills, only to wind up in the emergency section of the hospital with suspected skull fractures.

Forresters Beach, Central Coast

What to do on an overcast and drab day. Why photography of course.

This is a three image exposure blend of +1, 0 and -1. I personally love the water movement created by the several waterfalls off the rocks. Contrasts well with the whole look of the shot. Forresters Beach is a gold mine of textures and vantage point like this one.

I will be making this image into a video tutorial in the near very future so when it is done I will post on the blog to let you all know for those who will be interested to see how this image was put together. I have had quite a few requests for tutorials on exposure blending so this will be the first. So watch this space ok !!

Spoon Bay – Exposure Blending

Ok guys and girls. Here is my latest blend of three images. Shot these ones at -2, 0 and +2. When shooting I did keep my .9 ND grad on and I don’t think I will next time as when doing the brackets it works well for the +2 and 0 but it kills the -2 and makes it too dark especially when that one is for the sky.

More experimentation I guess. Good fun shooting these things. Makes a change from shooting slide. I especially love the water movement in this shot.

There is no HDR (Photomatix) in this image just Photoshop CS3 and layers.

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