It was somewhat sunny today, so I thought I might go do some sunset pictures. I went out to Peat's Hill, a trail network on the east side of Bozeman where I run a lot. It's pretty much the highest point in Bozeman (besides the mountains obviously) so I'd get a really nice view over the town.
I showed up about half an hour before sunset, which is when "golden hour" is. This is that lovely golden light just as the sun is beginning to set. There were some clouds on the horizon, and the sun was just beginning to dip under them as I took my photos.
I did a series of HDR shots that when put together would be a large panoramic. HDR means high dynamic range. Dynamic range is basally the tonal range in an image. A human can see a much bigger range of tones than a camera can. For example, if you were taking a picture of someone backlit against the sky, you can see the detail in both their face and the clouds in the sky. The camera only has the range to see the clouds and leave the face underexposed, or the face and the clouds completely blown out. Taking an HDR photo means taking multiple exposure of the same scene at different exposer values and then sticking them together later to compress the tonal range and fit it all in one photo. For todays picture, I took three exposures, -1,0, and +1 exposure values. Since I was doing a panoramic as well, I did this with three photos.
In Lr, I exported the groups of three photos to Photomatix Pro, which is a program that makes HDR images. Once I'd got them all made into HDRs, I exported them to Ps and used the automatic panoramic tool. Cropped that down and then went back into Lr. I raised the clarity and vibrance, while lowering the saturation just a bit. This turned the snow gave the image that pop that it has in real life, while not making it look completely enhanced in post. At least I hope it did.
The camera settings I used were 1/200, f5.6, and ISO 100 on my 18-135mm lens.
See you tomorrow.
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