Night Light by the Pond

Posted: April 12, 2010 
Filed under: Front Page, North Carolina
Tagged: brier creek, hdr, North Carolina, photography, raleigh
Comments: Leave a Comment

Description

One of the many photography debates centers around the use of High Dynamic Range (HDR) imaging. There are people who don’t like it on any level and there are those who do not like look one of the more common “surreal” styles that is associated with it. One of the leaders in HDR photography would have to be Trey Ratcliff. I am a huge fan of Trey and his HDR website, Stuck in Customs. Ever since I got my camera, I have wanted to at least experiment with the type of images he produces. Now, the easiest way to get the multiple exposures required to get these images is to use the auto-bracketing feature of the camera. My little Nikon P6000 does have auto-bracketing, however, it’s JPEG only and only takes 3 exposures. In order to get more exposures and shoot in RAW, I need to manually adjust my exposure settings between every shot and that means having my camera in the exact same location over a span of a few minutes. Though it’s generally recommended that you use a tripod when shooting HDR anyway, for me, having a tripod is a must. Thankfully, the ZipShot that I recently purchased takes care of that requirement.

The very first night I got my Zipshot, I went out in front of my house and just took a shot so that I could start figuring out the process of taking multiple exposures for HDR images. It was about two nights later that I headed out to Brier Creek around dusk to see what I could do. Though most of my resulting HDR images turned out decent, I thought this image was head and shoulders above the rest. The combination of the purple sky, the fountain, the lights shining at the gazebo, etc…, all instantly resonated with me. Though I’m sure I’ll look back in a few years and think “why did I think that image is so special”, right now, it’s the first HDR image that I’m really, really proud of.