Anstruthers Lake vapour trails in HDR
Anstruthers lake - vapour trails...
This image was taken as we were travelling by boat across Anstruthers Lake, located in Ontario’s Kawarthas Lakes region, to the cottage of a friend. It is in fact a high dynamic range composite produced from three separate images shot in rapid sequence and spanning four stops of exposure. The composite was produced using Photomatix Pro and subsequently imported into Lightroom for some final adjustments.
The three original exposures are shown below. On cursory view one might think that the mid-exposure image (“exposure 2″) would do just fine (and perhaps it would). However, upon more careful examination one would note that the red and green channels – producing the yellow hues of the sunset – are blown out in various spots beyond the sun itself, and that some of the cloud formations lack in tonal definition. It is these two aspects of the mid-exposure image that are cleaned up nicely in the high dynamic range version.
When merging images for high dynamic range processing, I have found it best to limit the number of original files to three or four; using more than this number can lead to softer images. Note as well that, while a tripod is best, it isn’t always necessary – I often produce acceptable HDR images from handheld shots and have found that Photomatix Pro and Photoshop both do a very good job of aligning images. (Recall that these Anstruthers Lake images were taken handheld from a slowly moving boat.)
Anstruthers lake - exposure 1
Anstruthers Lake - exposure 2
Anstruthers Lake - exposure 3
Enjoy…
David
