Friday, June 12, 2009

The Falls of Great Falls


(click to enlarge)

So this is the final for the Great Falls HDR shots I did.

To recap my technique:

I shot all images RAW with a D200 w/ 24-120 VR Nikkor , I shot Aperture priority, bracketed, 3 shots, hand held at f3.5. I overlapped the pano 20 percent for each shot.

Imported the .NEF's into Lightroom. I selected the series (3 x how many in the pano) I was going to batch processes in Photomatix, created a new folder in LR and put the images in the folder. Started photomatx, did a batch of that folder at 3 images, and walked away. So how do I get the look? These are the setting I used. If you use Photmatix, you know they a a bit over the top, but I went to a HDR seminar by Chris Alvanas at CDIA and he is the one who turned me on to this. He was also the guy that was in Nikon World Magazine for HDR and the cover for Shutterbug.



After they batch processed in Photomatix Pro ,the tonemapped .Jpegs would be plaed in a new folder, I synced the folder in LR, and the tonemapped .Jpegs would import into LR. Select (Ctrl-click) the .Jpegs and right click, Merge to Pano in Photoshop. Ctrl-Shift-E to merge layers, Crop, Curve, Sharpen (unsharp mask Amt 185, Radius 1, Threshold 5-10), add letterbox effect in canvas (Alt-Ctrl-C). Save and export for the blog at 2000 wide 72dpi.

Bottom Line, Its FUN, I do not carry a tripod everywhere, and I think the water came out really cool in the process, very angry. Try it yourself and have some fun... If I was not clear (not the first time) or you have a question, feel free to email me Michael@mpalmerphotography.com.

Also if your in the DC area, my Meetup Group "When everyone else is working photography meetup group" is having a meetup tomorrow night to support the Shawn Duffy Night Photowalk.

Have a good weekend.

4 comments:

Sue said...

Mike, thank you for taking the time to write out your steps for processing the waterfall pano images. Fantastic information. I will certainly refer back to this post for "inspiration" and guidance.

ostman said...

Thanks for sharing. Creates a very painterly feel, which is great for the falls.

Enigma3 said...

Excellent shot Mike.

Jeff Revell said...

Mr. Meyer would be so proud. He is all about the HDR Pano. Now just add a stack to it and you will be king of the world (at least in Mike's book).