This is a gallery of some of my favorite pictures from my blog this year. It is a response to this week’s photo challenge from WordPress. A big thank you to everyone who has stopped by my blog this year!
Cheers!
I was excited to have this picture win an honorable mention in my camera club last week:
ISO 800 50mm -0.33 f/16 1/400
I gave the original photo information in the caption above but this is an HDR image that I created in Photomatix. The day of the Forest Park Balloon Festival the sky was pretty bland all day. It was a bit nicer right as the sun was setting. Using Photomatix really helped make the sky more interesting.
Cheers!
The travel theme this week at Where’s my backpack? is hot. For this challenge I decided to take one photo from the Forest Park Balloon Festival and edit it two different ways:
ISO 100 50mm 0ev f/16 1/400
and:
ISO 100 50mm 0ev f/16 1/400
Both versions were edited using Photomatix. The obvious difference here is the color vs. black and white. One thing I did differently with the two which might not be as obvious was that I changed the exposure bracketing. The version that is color includes a photo where the exposure was very high. I did that to bring out the blue in the balloon which was not visible in the original unedited photo. The bracketing on the black and white version is much closer together.
Which do you prefer? Which do you think works better with the theme? Have an opinion? please share it in the comment section.
Cheers!
Earlier in the week I posted another balloon photo and I am at it again. I thought it would be a nice way to end the work week:
ISO 800 50mm -0.33ev f/16 1/400
Looks like fun doesn’t it? Just float away. Here is the original photo:
Some of the editing I did was very similar to what I wrote about earlier in the week. With this photo though the first step was to crop. Basically I was just interested in the middle section of the photo. Then in Aperture I made two additional versions one with a lower exposure than the original and one with a higher. Then I took the three photos to Photomatix, where I put them back together. Back in Aperture, I saturated the color a bit more and sharpened the image.
I’d love to hear what you think! Have a pleasant Friday.
Cheers!
It has been awhile since I have posted a hot air balloon photo, but I was working on some this weekend:
ISO 640 50mm -0.33ev f/16 1/40
This was taken in the fall at the Forest Park Balloon Festival. Here is the original photo:
Looks pretty different eh? In Aperture I created two additional versions of the photo, I lowered the exposure on one, raised it on the other. Then I took my three photos into Photomatix and put them back together. I ended up liking one of the “painterly” settings best.
I also took out some stray ropes, boosted the color and sharpened the image.
Cheers!
I took this picture at the Forest Park Balloon Festival. I think it works with the theme silhouette, which is what is being covered this week at the WordPress Weekly Photo Challenge.
ISO 320 50mm -0.33ev f/13 1/400
This photo was taken just after 5pm when the balloons from the festival were taking off for the race portion of the event. The sky had been pretty blah all day, but got nicer as the sun was going down.
In Aperture, I darkened the crowd a bit and sharpened the image to make the balloons stand out a bit more. In the camera I had dropped the exposure a bit, because I preferred the way the sky turned out as compared to a 0 exposure.
Cheers!
When I was at the Forest Park Balloon Festival I took a lot of shots of balloons being filled and getting off the ground. Here is one:
ISO 100 50mm f/2.8 1/400
Here is the original before I did any editing:
I wanted to brighten it up a bit to make the flames look a bit more dramatic. In the larger file size of this photo you can see the heat radiating a bit better than you can in this version.
Cheers!
I was lucky enough this weekend to be allowed on the field at the Forest Park Balloon Festival. I took a bunch of shots. Most of them are going to require some finishing up though. The sky was pretty bland for most of the day. I will be posting some pictures over time as I am working on them. Here is my first:
ISO 100 f/5.6 1/400 50mm
Here is the original shot:
These photos are going to give me plenty to practice with in Aperture. Your comments are appreciated. How would you have done the editing differently?
Cheers!
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