Crabby Sunset
October 14, 2010 by Kivus · Leave a Comment
I spent a few days last week down at Disney World. My first day there I headed over to the Downtown Disney Marketplace to grab a bite to eat and catch the sunset. This is the view from where i was sitting.
Lobster by Boat
September 23, 2010 by Kivus · Leave a Comment
Sometimes I post pictures that setup other pictures that I have yet to post. This is one of those times. This picture is the small harbor that borders the Harraseeket Lunch and Lobster. I have a decent story about my lunch there, but the main point of the story is this: my crab meat roll was probably the best I’ve ever had. It was spectacular.
As far as this picture goes, I really punished it with Viveza from Nik Software. Part of me wonders if no longer looks real since it’s so different from the original, out of camera shot.
Calm at the Harbor
September 10, 2010 by Kivus · Leave a Comment
Even though I’ve been back from Maine for a couple of weeks, both school and work have done a pretty good job of keeping me from editing my pictures. Another thing that’s holding me back on a few pictures is that I’m eagerly waiting for NIk Software’s new HDR plugin. I’m hoping the “anti-ghosting” functionality in said plugin will help me make HDR images out of the bracketed images I took of various harbors in Maine. I really like the look of HDR water, and one of the favorite images that I’ve created is a HDR harbor, but depending on the amount of movement of the boats, the ghosting can be pretty pronounced. I’ve got my fingers crossed that HDR Efex Pro helps solve that. There other option is to use some of techniques I learned from Trey Ratcliff’s new HDR DVD, but I’m hoping HDR Efex Pro does the work automatically.
All Aboard the Appledore
August 29, 2010 by Kivus · Leave a Comment
Since coming back from Maine, with hundreds of images on multiple memory cards, it has been a struggle not to just throw up all the images I took. I’d say that I have 3-4 that are portfolio worthy, another 50-60 that will eventually be put up as Snapshots. Some people, like Thomas Hawk, take so many photos that they can put up 20-30 a day on Flickr. I just don’t have that kind of picture volume even if I try to take at least a few pictures every day. I wouldn’t mind getting to that level, but for now, I’ve pretty much settled into a photo every other day pace.
In addition to editing photos, I’ve been sending a decent about of time on some new site features. The one new section that I’ve completed is reviews, which consolidates all the reviews I’ve done to date.
Harbor View (Write-up)
May 16, 2010 by Kivus · Leave a Comment
Harbor View - © John Kivus, 2010
My family and I took a trip to New Bern, NC recently. Though I had never been to that area, my mother and father had spent a day there on a vacation a year ago and she had been looking forward to going back. I was thinking it would be similar in ambience to a place like Wilmington, with places to eat down by the water. Strangely, the only place to eat by the water is a local HIlton, though there are rumors you can view the water from the roof of Captain Ratty’s in town. My father and I wanted to go to the Captain Ratty’s route, however, my mother decided she would rather eat at the hotel. That meant my father and I were outvoted. After the meal we took a walk down by the water and I took advantage of any docks that didn’t have their “keep out” signs up.
This image is actually an HDR that I took with my zipshot tripod while standing just off one of the docks. I had liked the shot originally (I personally love the look of HDR water, especially having applying the Tonal Contrast Filter from Color Efex Pro), however, when taking multiple exposures manually (as I’ve said before, my camera doesn’t do autobracketing for RAW files), it means that it takes about 20-30 seconds to fire off all my images. This was particularly problematic for me on this shot because it meant the boats were moving slightly in each image. In Photomatix, this meant that my final image had this little bit of autofocus / blurring around the boats and dock. It was hardly noticeable, but if you looked at the image for awhile, then your eyes would really start to correct it and you’d almost get a headache. Now, I don’t pretend to be a photographic master by any stretch of the imagination, however, I know I don’t want my images to give people headaches. Thankfully, the new Photoshop CS5 HDR processing’s anti-ghosting capabilities fixed that problem and I was left with a shot that hopefully is not headache inducing.
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