Focus Stacking and HDR Attempt

 Europe, Italy, Travel  9 Responses »
Dec 052012
 

Tonight’s photo is a bit of an experiment, with a questionable level of success, and I’m going to tell you how I produced my first focus stacked HDR landscape image. I had an image in mind of the grapes hanging on their vines in front of the dome off in the distance. This required some careful lining up as in order to make the dome large enough in the frame I had to use my 300mm lens and stand a fair distance from the grapes. I also had the problem that there was a bit of breeze and the leaves were moving about. As a result I needed a fast enough shutter speed to freeze the leaves motion. However, I wanted to take bracketed exposures to produce an HDR image. As the HDR process creates a lot of noise in the image I was reluctant to increase my ISO to get the shutter speed up. This meant I had to increase my aperture to the point where I couldn’t get the depth of field I needed to keep the grapes and the dome in focus.

I had the term “focus stacking” in my mind. I wasn’t sure where I’d heard it but assumed it was some method for combining a number of images focused at different points into one fully focused image. With this in mind I set about taking bracketed images adjusting the focus from the front of the image all the way through to the back. It resulted in me taking the following 21 images (My gallery import isn’t working, you can see them here until I figure it out):

 [pydsmugmugslider albumid=”26919787″ albumkey=”NX5MQ6″ albumtype=”tab” imagesize=”ThumbURL” imagelink=”0″ ]

Naturally, this was a daunting task. I did some reading on how to focus stack and discovered it was relatively easy. You simply upload the images to Photoshop and click on the following:

  1. File >>Scripts>>Load Files into Stack
  2. Edit>>Auto-Align Layers
  3. Edit>>Auto-Blend Layers

Then, like magic you have a tack sharp image from front to back. Well, at least that’s what the articles I read led me to believe. I set about to try this, with my regularly exposed images. After clicking Auto-Blend Layers Photoshop whirred away and did come out with a pretty magical result. I have no idea how it does it. It was good but it wasn’t perfect.

I had a number of areas that were still blurry and assumed I must have missed focusing on certain areas. I wasn’t sure how I could have done this as I adjusted the focus by such small increments. That was a few months ago and I had actually given up on this image. Tonight, I asked my travel partner what she thought I should work up tonight. I do that when I need some inspiration. Naturally, she always picks one of the places she visited with me. Tonight she said Italy. I’ve actually processed all of the Italy photos I expected to process, but then I remembered this one and decided to try again.

I did the sGrapes in front of an Italian dome (duomo) in Piedmont Italy, HDR focus stacked image.ame thing I did last time, started by attempting to focus stack the regularly exposed images. I got the same result, blurry around the edges and with a few areas of the photo out of focus. Then I had an epiphany. I use Photomatix to produce HDR images,  but I don’t trust the program to get it right, I go in and fix problem areas. I could do the same with this focus stacking stuff.

So, after combining the seven images that would become my one regularly exposed image I layered the result on top of the original 7 images and searched for in focus areas to replace the out of focus portions of the image. Once I found them, I masked through to the original photo to sharpen up the blurry areas. This worked pretty well, though I did still have some areas that I just failed to focus on – I did say it was an experiment, the results aren’t perfect.

Once I got this technique down I decided that I could do the same with the 7 underexposed and 7 overexposed images to produce the three different exposures I needed to create my HDR image. This went well and I was left with three images bracketed from -2 to +2. Once I had these three images I was able to process them in Photomatix and Photoshop as usual.

Read about how I do that in my Free HDR Tutorial.

 I don’t think that I can really call this photo a success except for the fact that Iv’e got a few thoughts to take away from it. The biggest issue I had was the movement of the leaves. As you can see in the result, the areas that are still blurred are surrounding the leaves. This is due to the fact that in the photo where those areas were in focus, the leaves were blocking the view. I cuold have taken a similar approach to removing people from Charles Bridge and shot multiple shots at teh same exposures and focus. This would have increased my chances of catching all the areas of the final image in focus.

Another option would have been to make note of the spot and wait for a time when it was less windy. However, when travelling with limited time this could likely result in just giving up.

I also wish I had shot this at a higher ISO, to see if I could control the noise in post-processing. As it turns out, carrying out so many steps has resulted in a lot of noise in the final image anyway. I could have bracketed the images and, rather than using Photomatix to combine them simply masked the correctly exposed dome onto the correctly exposed vines.

That being said, I’ve enjoyed the process and think I’ll keep exploring the possiblities available with focus stacking. I do really like watching the magic of Photoshop as it combines the variously focused images into one.

 

Turf Roofed Church in Hof, Iceland

 Europe, Iceland, Travel  15 Responses »
Dec 042012
 

This church in Hof was a happy find. I’d wanted to photograph turf roofed buildings the whole time I was there. We were on our way back to the Jockulsarlon Glacier lagoon, on the same day that we had to make it all the way to Reykjavik. We were pressed for time. But, before we left Hof, the tiny little town we’d spent the night in, we had to stop to photograph this church. I’ve posted other shots of the exterior and interior before.

A church with a roof made of turf grass in Hof, Iceland in front of a blue sky

The Tampa Bay Grand Hyatt Boat Dock in Pink

 Florida, Travel  265 Responses »
Dec 022012
 

Here is another shot from my hour spent on the boat dock at the Tampa Bay Grand Hyatt. For this shot I decided to drop the camera down low and extend the docks reach for the horizon. It’s interesting to compare this photo to the other two I’ve already released:

Three Little Birds

Boat Dock in Blue

These photos were all taken within about a half hour as the sun was rising. It goes to show just how much the light conditions change as the sun rises, and how hectic it can be taking advantage of the changes. It can also make it difficult to decide when the right time to take the shot is! I’ve had a number of occasions, for example when I was shooting Horseshoe Bay, where I think I’ve taken all the pictures I want and then suddenly something happens that offers a better photo to send me running around taking them all again.

A boat dock extends to the horizon at sunrise, in front of a pink sky at the Hyatt Resort in Tampa, Florida.

Dinner in Acqui Terme

 Europe, Italy, Travel  10 Responses »
Nov 302012
 

Coordinating dinner and taking photos is often a pretty tricky task as dinner time so often coincides with the two hours either side of sunset. In this case, it wasn’t such a problem. If you look closely at the pizzeria to the right you can see my family and English relatives at the large table under the left awning.

Acqui Terme is named for this spring in a very interesting, pretty square. When I got there it was totally overcast, except for a small patch of blue sky a long way away. I decided to wait for it.

Time ticked away and I was thinking I may have to pack it in to go to dinner. Fortunately, everyone decided to eat in the pizzeria in the same square. I stayed with my camera, waiting for the blue sky to appear where I wanted it. I was very hungry and wanted to order but didn’t want to pack up my camera to do it. Just as I was about to give in to the hunger, and pack up, my very conscientious travel partner appeared with menu in hand. I ordered a pizza diavola and continued waiting. Once my window of blue sky arrived I moved quickly through three points I’d previously decided to take photos from. This was the last of them.

I arrived at the table just as my beer did… perfect!

The Roman Spring at Acqui Terme, in a typical Italian square under a blue sky in piedmont, italy

Rickety Bridge, Myvatn Iceland

 Europe, Iceland, Travel  6 Responses »
Nov 292012
 

I liked this bridge a lot. So much so that when I saw it from the road I decided I had to photograph it, despite the fact that we had to continue on the road about a quarter-mile more before we could pull in. I began walking back to the bridge, thinking my travel partner would follow. Unfortunately, she didn’t. She took off in the other direction. Come to think of it I still don’t know what she’d spotted there.

The problem was that I’d taken the car keys with me. After setting up to take today’s photo I broke down my gear and debated whether to cross the bridge or not. In the end I did, very gingerly. I took two more pictures there before returning and making the walk back to the car, interrupted by a photo of a farm. When I returned I found my travel buddy huddled next to the car, shivering. I felt pretty bad. Amazingly, she didn’t complain, but from that point on she was in charge of the car key every time we got out. This typically resulted in me returning to the car to find it heated to the temperature of the surface of the sun.

An old, dilapidated, rickety, bridge spans a small river surrounded by barren landscape in Iceland.

Svartifoss and Boulders in the Rain, Iceland

 Europe, Iceland, Travel  34 Responses »
Nov 272012
 

Featured by Suzy Guese

I found out, on Twitter, that a fellow traveler, Suzy Guese, has a weekly competition for travel bloggers. For a week, she views submissions from all over the world and then chooses five of them. I decided to give it a shot by providing a link to one of my earliest posts, from Zambia. Check it out, along with four other exciting travel stories and follow her for a weekly dose of travel writing:

Suzy Stumbles Over Travel: Week of November 26, 2012

Today’s Photo: Svartifoss and Boulders in the Rain, Iceland

This is another photo of Svartifoss from the “nearly falling in the water” series. My travel partner and I clutched onto each other as we teetered on minimal boulder real estate. She held the umbrella, I worked the camera. There were a few errors resulting in half the umbrella breaking into the frame and the tripod inadvertently getting kicked after somebody slipped. I won’t say who. We were in this awkward position when two other photographers turned up with tripods in tow. They didn’t choose to balance themselves in the middle of the river while trying to operate an umbrella, camera, and prevent each-other from falling into the chilly current like we did. I think it was worth it. At the very least, it was good fun.

Svartifoss in the rain, under a grey sky, with the blurred stream flowing around a boulder

 

 

Victoria Falls double rainbow, Zambia

 Africa, Travel, Victoria Falls, Waterfall, Zambia  2 Responses »
Nov 262012
 

I’ve been talking with my travel buddy a lot today about our future plans. We’re confident that we’ll be going to Livingstone and the Victoria falls. This will be my second visit and her first. As you may be aware the last time I was there I went swimming in the Devil’s Pool. As it turns out, it looks like the water levels will still be low enough when we get there for us to take a dip atop the falls. I am very much looking forward to watching the look on her face as she takes the plunge.

With that in mind, I thought I’d post a picture capturing what we’re likely to see as we make the walk to the Devil’s Pool. Last time, this beautiful double rainbow greeted me shortly before we prepared to swim across the top of that waterfall to the Devil’s Pool. When I hung my head over the edge and looked down from the Devil’s Pool I realized that rather than a double rainbow there was actually a triple rainbow in the swirling mist. Next time I’m there I hope to get down to the falls for some sunrise/sunset shots.

A double rainbow in the mist of the Victoria Falls waterfall in Zambia

 

The Unfinished Church Interior, Bermuda

 Bermuda, Travel  No Responses »
Nov 222012
 

If a building doesn’t have a roof, does it still have an interior?

This is the unfinished church up in St. Georges. Writing this post has made me realize that I don’t know much about it. A quick Google search tells me that construction was started in the 1870s after that parish’s church, St. Peters, was damaged by a storm. As it was thought that the damage was irreparable they began building. However, the replacement was not completed. Apparently, one of the issues was that the parishioners couldn’t agree on whether they should build a new church or fix St. Peters.

Unfortunately, it’s been deemed too dangerous to enter and big metal gates bar entry. It makes for an interesting challenge trying to find a good angle. I tried a few different methods. One of which involved setting my tripod on a windowsill while standing on a small ledge. The problem was that to frame up the picture I needed two hands. One to move the camera, the other to lock it in place. Every time I took both hands off I’d slowly fall off the wall. The solution was to have my girlfriend stand behind me and push me against the wall. In this position I was able to operate the camera. I did forget to mention to her when I’d finished using two hands and she could let go. We stayed in that position, with me balancing on my own, for quite a while longer than we needed.

For this shot, I stood at the metal gate and propped my tripod against it. I only used two legs so that I could slip the lens through the gaps in the metal. I only shot 3 exposures, from -2 to +2, because the sun was high enough that this would do the trick. I combined the three exposures using Photomatix and then cleaned it up a bit in Photoshop.

The interior archways of the unfinished church in Bermuda in front of a blue sky

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