HDR, Shoe Mount Flash, and Digital Camera Haters

High Dynamic Range (HDR) Tutorial

Photoshop Support has a High Dynamic Range Tutorial using Photoshop CS3, but not using the HDR tool.  HDR requires 3 images and this only requires 2 — one for the highlights and one for the shadows.  The technique outlined is also supposed to give better mid-tone ranges than the Merge to HDR command.  Sometimes I'll use a method similar to this, but with one photo.  I'll just process the same RAW file twice — once for highlights and once for shadows.  Then I'll merge the two of them for better results than I would have had just processing the one image.

Mounting Your Flash IN a Shoe

The Strobist has a good DIY-type of post for making a Light Stand in a Pinch: Your Shoe.  You kind of laugh at first, but then you realize that it's super smart.  My flash has a little stand that clips into the bottom so it can stand up on its own, but I don't always carry it with me.  So I may actually end up using this one sometime.

Digital Camera Killer

Over at Mostly Photography, there's a post on Why Digital Cameras Should Be Outlawed.  I don't even know where to start with this one, but I'm in full disagreement.  The main argument behind this is that people take too many pictures because it's affordable.  SO WHAT!?!  I have over 18,000 photos just from the last 4 years — and I love every one of them.  Then again, 90% of them are of my kids.  But even so, I don't see anything wrong with taking over 300 photos in one outing — I'm the one that has to deal with them!  Ugh.

Photo of the Day…

Photo by Brian Auer
03/05/07 Neuchatel, Switzerland
Shattered Wall Graffiti
Konica Minolta Maxxum 7D
Konica Minolta AF DT 18-200
75mm equiv * f/4.5 * 1/30s * ISO100