The Ben'enator » Photography

Canon To Do Good In-Camera HDR

admin — Sat, 12 Jun 2010 07:11:16 +0000

It looks like Canon is filing a patent to do some “good” in camera HDR in the near future and they have redone the way HDR is done in order to do this on-the-fly. Typically, High Dynamic Range (HDR) photography is done by post-processing a few different exposures onto a single image. Canon is doing things differently and now, you’ll be able to take photos like this or this photo by a single click of the shutter.

Photography Bay has more details and the initial impression is that it will be pretty decent. Time will tell, but I really like the ability to tweak and customize. Having it done with a single click will take out the creative process and then it becomes a standard image like every other picture snapped.

According to an exemplary embodiment of the present invention, preliminary image capturing is performed using the image capturing unit, and the exposure time is assigned to each pixel based on the result of the preliminary image capturing. Image capturing can thus be performed with a wide dynamic range without a loss of highlight detail and a loss of shadow detail. – USPTO Appl. No. 12/630,594, ¶¶ 11 & 14

Ultimate Camera Accessory

admin — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 06:30:50 +0000

I’m a junkie… It’s an addiction that I can’t put away and unfortunately costs a whole lot. I’m talking about photography and although you can’t always chase after the latest and the greatest gear, sometimes there comes along a nifty piece of hardware or software that is worth the money. I recently purchased the onOne software DSLR remote for my iPod Touch.

The beauty of this software is that it allows you remotely tigger your camera, adjust ISO, exposure, aperture and more – all from your iPod or iPhone. If your camera is capable of “Live View”, it will also stream the live image through the lens to your iPod. It sounds almost too good to be true, and at $20 for the “Pro” version, it is probably one of the cheapest camera accessories that money can buy. That being said it’s super powerful – but there is one caveat – your camera must be connected to a Windows or Mac computer that in turn is connected to a wireless network. This makes it not as handy out in the field, but still a nice tool – especially if you have a USB powered router like the Trendnet TEW-652TR Travel Router.

With that being said, I play to take it to Bonerak’ageddon this weekend in Lethbridge and should be able to upload some photos of the event to Flickr. I’ll also try livestreaming some of the gaming and Windows 7 festivities on Qik. Stay tuned.

HDR Updates

admin — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 23:56:08 +0000

I’m certainly no photographer, but I’ve had a bit of fun recently trying to pull off some HDR (High Dynamic Range) photos. For those of you not familiar with this, the process is really quite simple in principle. You take 3+ photos of the same subject at different exposure levels and then combine the images into one. One photo will be underexposed, one overexposed and one right smack dab in the middle. When you combine these with Photoshop CS2 or better, it will allow you to bring out the detail of all of the images and give you a bit of a surreal look. The amount of surreal is up to you.

When playing around with HDR, I prefer to go for a more realistic look like the other old barn below.

If you have and comments, questions or suggestions, please post them in the comments section below. As you can see I’m a total HDR n00b and I want to learn. I’ve read a few guides for sure, but I can bet there are some tweaks, tips and tricks to make photos even better. Please share!