Panoramas are a great way to show a wider view in landscape and cityscape photography. A panorama is made by taking several overlapping images and stitching them together into one wide image. It’s easy to do a panorama in Lightroom or Photoshop, but I’ll concentrate on Lightroom in this article. And we can also do a panorama of HDR images. All of the principles are the same, we just have several bracketed images that we combine into single images and then combine them into a single panorama.
When you shoot your images for a panorama, start at one end of your scene and shoot an image (or in the case of an HDR Pano a bracketed series), pan over leaving about a 20% overlap, shoot and repeat until you have covered the view you want. I usually look for a feature near the edge of a shot, and make sure it is at the edge of the next image. I tend to shoot from left to right, but the software will work if you shoot right to left also. Also just as in HDR brackets, it is important that the aperture and focus stay constant. The software today is so good it can combine even hand held shots, but I think you will have the best results if shoot on a tripod that has been carefully leveled. That is especially important shooting an HDR panorama.
In addition to combining physical features, the software will attempt to match exposure and colors. That works best if you shoot your exposures in manual mode. If you shoot in an automatic mode like aperture priority, the exposure will change as you move through brighter and darker areas of the scene and there may be obvious bands in the sky where two pictures join. I try to pick an exposure in a part of the image that is not the brightest or darkest part, and bracket around that.
I’ll be showing you the steps in creating an HDR panorama. For this image I shot 25 total images, 5 scenes with 5 brackets (From -4 to +4) each. I set my camera to manual mode and took a meter reading from the center of the scene which was neither the darkest or lightest area. My metered exposure was 1/25 sec at f16 at ISO. My brackets then were 1/400 sec, 1/100 sec, 1/25 sec, 1/6 sec and .6 sec. I combined each set of brackets into an HDR image in Lightroom as I covered in part 3 of my series. I made no edits whatsoever, I only created the HDR DNG files. Again that’s important so that the tones in the sky match up well.
Below are the five HDR files I’ll use for the panorama.
Once I had all five of these images created, I selected them in Lightroom, right clicked on them and selected Photomerge/panorama.
On the options screen I selected spherical, and unchecked autocrop.
Normally when the images are combined there is some distortion produced that results in the white areas in the image below. If I had selected autocrop, Lightroom would have cropped my image to delete all of these areas.
Instead I adjusted the Boundary warp area slider to 100% and those white areas were filled in as Lightroom corrected for the distortion. Hitting merge completes the process.
I now have an HDR panorama as shown below. But just like our previous Lightroom HDR image, it looks underexposed and pretty plain. But there is a huge range of exposure values that we don’t yet see until we do some editing to bring them out.
In the develop module I adjusted the white and black points automatically by shift-double clicking on their pointers. This increased the black point slightly and decreased the white point to -100. I completely decreased highlights, increased shadows to about 62, increased the exposure and increased clarity and vibrance.
Here is the image after my Lightroom adjustments.
From Lightroom I took the image over to Photoshop for high pass sharpening and Tonal contrast as I discussed in Part 6. And here is the finished image.
Here is another image shot with the same technique, but with 3 images, each with three brackets.
After I’ve created my HDR image, I will adjust exposure, white and black points, contrast, vibrance and color in Lightroom as in past articles, or in ACR if I’m already in Photoshop.
There are two things that I almost always do and occasionally I’ll add a couple of other touches. The first thing that every HDR gets is some pretty strong sharpening. For this I use the high pass sharpening technique. It’s pretty easy if you follow the steps, and since it’s so useful, you may want to create an action for it which allows you to run the process with a single click. Here is how to create an action in Photoshop.
The first step is to duplicate our base layer. The shortcut is ctrl (cmd)-J.
Next select filter/other/high pass.
Select a radius of 5 and hit OK.
That looks pretty strange, but we’re about to fix that. Select the high pass layer and change its blend mode to soft light. You’ll see a lot of sharpening, and it seems to lighten and open up the mid tones.
Merge the two layers with the shortcut ctrl (cmd)-e. If you want more intense sharpening there are several options. You can select hard light as the blend mode, or increase the radius. Or you can repeat the steps at the original radius and blend mode. I have made actions for both 5 and 10 pixel radius settings.
Now that we have our sharpening done, I almost always run NIK’s Color Efex (Part of the NIK Plug-ins suite, and remember it’s free) and select the tonal contrast preset.
The tonal contrast filter will create a new layer and apply the effect to this new layer. That also allows us to vary the effect by changing the opacity of the layer and even by using masks to block the effect from parts of the image. I usually accept the plug-in’s defaults and hit OK.
Then select the tonal contrast layer and merge the two layers with the shortcut ctrl (cmd)-e.
Those are the two things I do for almost every image. If I want something a little more extreme, I often run Topaz Adjust with the Spicify filter. You can purchase Topaz adjust or download a trial at:
Before running Topaz adjust, I create a duplicate layer with the shortcut ctrl (cmd)-j. That way I can vary the effect by changing the opacity of the layer, using a mask to block the effect in parts of the image, or I can just delete the layer if I don’t like the effect at all.
There is no limit to the effects you can add, but I hope these articles have given you some of the basics. There are also several other programs for creating HDR images such as Aurora, Easy HDR and HDR Projects 4.
And remember there is no one way, no right or wrong way, only the way that suits your vision for the image. As you do more and more HDR images, you will find your own style starts to emerge. So, now go out, shoot some brackets and start experimenting.
So you can see how some of the images from the earlier articles look, here are some examples.
NIK HDR Efex image with high pass sharpening and NIK Color Efex Tonal Contrast.
NIK HDR Efex image with high pass sharpening and NIK Color Efex Tonal Contrast and Topaz Adjust Spicify.
Lightroom HDR image with high pass sharpening and NIK Color Efex Tonal Contrast.
Lightroom HDR image with high pass sharpening and NIK Color Efex Tonal Contrast and Topaz Adjust Spicify.
Photomatix HDR image with high pass sharpening and NIK Color Efex Tonal Contrast.
Photomatix HDR image with high pass sharpening and NIK Color Efex Tonal Contrast and Topaz Adjust Spicify.
Adobe Photoshop has had HDR Pro built in since version CS5. I rarely ever use it because I either create my more photorealistic HDR images in Lightroom, or the wilder images in Photomatix. But here are the basic steps involved in creating an HDR within Photoshop.
Again I’ll be using the same six images we’ve worked with in the previous articles. The first step is getting you images into Photoshop HDR Pro. As usual there are a couple of ways to do this.
If you use Lightroom, select your images, right click and choose edit in/merge to HDR in Photoshop.
If you don’t use Lightroom, there are two ways to get your images into HDR Pro.
The first is not so obvious because it begins with file/automate/merge to HDR Pro.
After you select Merge to HDR, you’ll see a dialog box where you can browse and select your images. Once you select them click open.
After opening the files you’ll see the dialog box below. Check attempt to automatically align images and click OK.
The other way is to open Photoshop, and choose file/open and browse to select your images. When you have them selected, click open.
At this point you have six separate files open. Now go to file/automate/merge to HDR.
Click add open files and click OK.
Now the next screen opens, and you can select two ways to process your image. Again only check remove ghosts if there was movement in the images. If you leave the color depth at 32 bits, “complete toning in Adobe camera raw” will be checked.
Click tone in ACR and you will see the screen below. If it looks a lot like editing in Lightroom, that’s because it’s exactly the same. I won’t go into details here, because we covered that in part 3.
If you select 8 or 16 bit color depth, toning in Adobe camera Raw is not an option. You’ll see the screen below. If you leave the preset at custom, basically you’re on your own. So start moving sliders and see what you like. Here I adjusted strength, gamma, and exposure.
You can select from a range of presets and see if any are close to what you like. Most of the presets are pretty much unusable, but you might find Scott5 (named for Scott Kelby) or RC5 (named for RC Concepcion) useful starting points. Below I’ve selected the Scott 5 which is my favorite starting point.
As usual, I would either make further edits in Lightroom, or in Adobe Camera Raw (ACR) since I’m already in Photoshop. And then I would do my final touches in Photoshop which is the subject of Part 6.
In this article I’ll explain how to create an HDR image in HDRsoft Photomatix 5. This is probably the most widely used HDR program, and it’s my choice when I want to get wilder than the photorealistic look I get in Lightroom. You can purchase or download a trial at https://www.hdrsoft.com/index.html.
I’m using the same six images we used in HDR Part 2. The first step is to select our images and then there are two main ways to get them into Photomatix depending on whether you use Lightroom or not.
The way I prefer to work from Lightroom is to configure Photomatix as an external editor. This allows you to define what type of files will be sent to Photomatix, the color depth, and what file to start to run Photomatix. Once you have Photomatix set up as an external editor, select all of the files you want to use, right click (PC) and select “edit in” and select Photomatix. Lightroom will then convert your raw images to the file format you specify (I use 8bit TIFF) and open them in Photomatix. Again if you don’t know how to configure an external editing program here is an article showing how.
After you select edit in Photomatix, you will see the dialog box below. If you shot in raw, Lightroom will automatically create TIFFs (or whatever file type you specified when setting Photomatix up as an external editor) and that is your only choice. If you shot JPGs or TIFFs you will have the option to edit the originals.
If you don’t use Lightroom (and why don’t you?) or if you want to work directly with your raw files, you can start Photomatix, and import directly. Choose load bracketed images, browse to their location and click open.
Then choose Merge for HDR processing as below.
You will see your images listed in the box. I always leave “show 32 bit image” unchecked. Click OK
Whether you selected you images in Lightroom, or opened them in Photomatix you will see this import dialog. I always leave align source images checked. Then choose whether you shot handheld or on a tripod. You can leave crop aligned images checked, but that really only applies if you shot handheld and the program had to do a lot of shifting to align the images. Again ghosting options are only necessary if something with the picture was moving, so I left it unchecked. I always choose reduce noise on underexposed and normal images, leave strength at 100% and I always check chromatic aberration. Depending on the speed of your computer, and the number and size of your files, it may take a couple of minutes to do all of the corrections and open your new image in the main editing window.
Below is the main editing window. On the left are the individual controls, and on the right are several presets. I have created several of my own presets that are my usual starting point. My suggestion is to click through the presets until you see something close to what you like, and then start adjusting sliders to fine tune the look.
In the image below, I started with my own “medium painterly high black point” preset and adjusted from there. I almost always leave strength at 100%. I usually don’t change saturation from the default of 50 since I prefer to adjust that later in Lightroom. I usually have tone compression high, between 8 and 10, and detail contrast between 6 and 10. Lighting adjustments I rarely change from medium. Surreal and surreal+ pretty much do as they sound like, and they’re usually too much, even for me.
Smooth highlights I usually leave low, sometimes even 0 as here. The white and black point settings really depend on the individual image, but I generally have the white point less than 1 and the black point between 6 and 10. I’ve found that a higher black point creates more realistic shadows. If you’ll notice, most of the extreme HDR’s that you love to hate, have almost no shadows, and that is part of the unreal look. Gamma adjusts the overall exposure as well as the balance of highlights and shadows. Increasing it lightens the image, decreasing darkens it. Small adjustments make pretty big changes. I also don’t usually change the color temperature, but wait to do that back in Lightroom.
If you have some settings you really like, before applying them, you can save them as a preset, for later use. When your image looks good to you click apply at the lower left.
After a few seconds, you will see the finishing touch box. I usually select “sharpen with mild sharpening”, but don’t use contrast or color controls. Again I’ll do them back in Lightroom.
Choose where to save your image and in what format. I usually choose 8 bit TIFF. 16 bit has more color information, but the files are much larger, and if I edit them in Photoshop, many plug-ins only work in 8 bit mode.
Here’s how my image looks after editing in Photomatix.
Back in Lightroom I adjusted the color balance by selecting the eyedropper tool and clicking on the gray spoke of a wheel. I set the white and black points by shift-double clicking on their pointers. I increased the exposure, added some contrast and added a good bit of clarity and some vibrance.
And here it is with Lightroom edits. Of course I still have more editing to do in Photoshop, but that’s for Part 6.
In this article I’ll explain how to create an HDR image in Adobe Lightroom. This is probably my preferred method when I want a more natural looking image. And we can do it all without leaving Lightroom, though I usually do some extra work in Photoshop.
The first step is to select our images, right click and choose Photomerge, and then HDR as below. I’m using the same six images we used in HDR Part 2.
After clicking on HDR, we get the opening screen below with a couple of choices to make. Auto align is necessary if you handheld your shots, and it doesn’t hurt to leave it selected if you shot on a tripod. I always leave it checked. Auto tone will attempt to adjust the image once it’s assembled. I Always leave it unchecked. It’s important not to check this if you are creating HDR images for a panorama. The deghosting options are only necessary if something in your image was moving, and that isn’t the case in this image. Once you make your choices click merge and Lightroom does the work.
After Lightroom assembles the images, you’ll see the file below with the name of the first image, HDR and in DNG format (circled in the image below). Right now it just looks like a somewhat underexposed image. What isn’t apparent is that it contains a huge range of usable exposure information which allows us to make very large adjustments in exposure and highlights and shadows without losing quality or increasing noise.
From here we begin working on the image just as we normally would in Lightroom. The first thing I did was get rid of the green cast. I selected the eyedropper tool and clicked on a couple of areas that were gray, until I found a spot that gave me a color balance I liked. Then I set the black point by shift-double clicking on the blacks pointer and then on the white pointer. I increased the overall exposure and brought down the highlights and raised the shadows. I increased clarity and vibrance a bit. Again I stay away from saturation.
Here you can see the adjustments I made.
And this is the resulting final image. It has a fairly realistic look. You could leave it here, but in Part 6 I’ll take it into Photoshop for some extra tweaks.
We can make it a little more like the extreme HDR images you have seen by completely flattening the highlights, increasing the shadows all the way, and increasing clarity to the max. Below are the settings and resulting image. Which is right – the image above, or the one below? The choice is yours. Once you start working with HDR, there is no one right way, only your vision.
In this article I’ll be discussing how to create an HDR image in NIK HDR Efex 2. The good news is that it is part of the complete Google NIK suite which can be downloaded for free at:
https://www.google.com/nikcollection/
To begin with, these are the bracketed images we’ll work with. I originally shot 7 brackets, but the -8 bracket was almost totally dark with no useful detail, so we’ll only work with the remaining six. It may seem that the +4 bracket is totally washed out, but look at the detail it reveals inside the tool cart. I had also dialed in -2 stops of exposure compensation, because I was more concerned with washed out highlights in this situation.
Figure -6 stops 1/30 sec f/8 ISO 800
Figure -4 stops 1/8 sec f/8 ISO 800
Figure -2 stops 1/2 sec f/8 ISO 800
Figure normal 2 sec f/8 ISO 800
Figure +2 stops 8 sec f/8 ISO 800
Figure +4 stops 30 sec f/8 ISO 800
The first thing we have to do is get our six images into NIK HDR Efex. Here’s the bad news – while HDR Efex can run as a standalone program, it cannot directly open camera raw files from any camera. If you shoot raw, you must create TIFFs or JPGs to use HDR Efex as a standalone. If you shoot JPGs, no problem – you can select and open them directly into HDR Efex. Here I have already created TIFF’s and I’m opening them in HDR Efex.
If you use Lightroom (and you should, for many reasons) you can select your images and send them to HDR Efex in a couple of ways. Here I’ve selected my images in Lightroom.
One option is to select your images, then choose File/export/ to google/and user preset/ HDR Efef. If that doesn’t appear as an option, here is how to correct that.
Or the way I prefer is to configure NIK HDR as an external editor. This allows you to define what type of files will be sent to NIK, the color depth, and what file to start to run NIK HDR. If you have NIK set up as an external editor, select all of the files you want to use, right click (PC) and select “edit in” and select NIK HDR Efex. Lightroom will then convert your raw images to the file format you specify (I use 8bit TIFF) and open them in NIK HDR. If you don’t know how to configure an external editing program here is an article showing how.
Whichever of the three methods you use to open your images, the first screen you see in NIK HDR will ask you to make a couple of choices. The first choice is about alignment. You must check this if you shot handheld, but you can also select this if you used a tripod.
Ghost reduction only applies if there was something moving within the image. This could be a fluttering flag, a person or animal, a car etc. This image had no movement so it is unchecked.
Besides intensifying noise, HDR seems to intensify chromatic aberration, so I leave this checked and usually accept the default settings.
Click on create HDR in the lower right, and your image opens in a window as below. On the left are the program’s built in presets, and as you click each one you can see how it will change the look of your image. I suggest you click on several and see what suits your image. I find I most often use the balanced preset, and that is the starting point I chose here.
Then start playing with sliders. Tone compression controls the balance between highlights and shadows, method strength effects micro contrast. Increasing strength gives a greater sense of detail, but can cause halos and other problems. be careful about overdoing this one. I decreased exposure a bit, left the shadows and highlights alone. I slightly decreased both blacks and whites, a bit. I increased structure to about 66%. Structure is similar to high pass sharpening in Photoshop and effects the look of detail and contrast. Several of these changes were made after this screenshot. Once you have the look you want, click save and select where to save the image.
Here is our image after processing in NIK HDR Efex, but it’s not at all ready yet. Notice the overall green color cast, and the highlights still feel a bit washed out.
My last article in this series is going to address some finishing touches in Photoshop, but here I’ll at least fix the color balance, add vibrance and clarity, and fine tune the exposure, and the white and black points. You can see I adjusted the color balance to eliminate the green cast by adding magenta. I opened the shadows a bit, and set the white and black points. I do this automatically by shift-double clicking on the back pointer and then the white. Sometimes I need to readjust from there, but it’s a good starting point. I usually add in some clarity (midrange contrast), here about 40, and increase vibrance a bit, but I usually don’t touch saturation.
So below is our first HDR created in NIK HDR Efex with some additional tweaks in LR. We’ll do the final adjustments in Photoshop in the last article.
Everyone knows I love doing HDR photography, so several people have asked me write an article on it. Actually, there are numerous books, so rather than try to do this as a single article, this will be a multipart article. First I’ll explain what HDR is, why to use it, and the basics of shooting for HDR. In the next articles I’ll discuss various programs and methods for creating HDR images, and how to apply the finishing touches in Photoshop.
What is HDR
HDR stands for High Dynamic Range Photography. Our eyes are capable of seeing more than 20 stops of dynamic range. That means we see into the shadows and still can see detail in the highlights. On the other hand, our cameras can see only 10 or 12 stops of dynamic range. We can improve that somewhat with post processing, but still detail will either be lacking in the shadows, or highlights or if the contrast is extreme, both.
In HDR photography we “bracket” by taking several images over a range of exposure from underexposed to record highlight detail to normal and then to overexposed to record shadow detail. We use software to combine and process all of these images into one image that has a greater dynamic range than is possible straight from the camera. There are several software options for processing HDR and each has its own advantages, disadvantages and “look”.
Figure 1A normal exposure has dark shadows and blown out highlights in the window
Figure 2 The HDR image has good detail in both the shadows and the window.
In addition to HDR, Rick Sammon talks about “EDR” or extended dynamic range. This is processing a single image to lighten the shadows and lower the brightness of the highlights. It is an improvement over the straight image, but it still can’t handle the extremes that HDR can.
Figure 3 An “EDR”. This is a single image with the shadows lightened as far as possible and highlights decreased as much as possible in Lightroom. It’s better than a normal image, but still doesn’t have the range of a true HDR image.
Why shoot HDR
HDR is absolutely the best way to maintain detail in extreme contrast. Typical examples are shooting inside a church and trying to maintain detail inside and in the stained glass windows, shooting a subject in heavy shade when the bright sky is also visible and trying to maintain detail in the subject and also in the sky. I often shoot HDR when the range of contrast doesn’t demand it, but I like the “look” of HDR which seems to intensify and exaggerate textures, and make colors pop.
Figure 4 No single exposure could capture the dark interior, bright ceiling lights and very bright exterior in the windows. Bill Mueller convinced me to try my first ever HDR on this 2010 field trip. He had no idea of the monster he was about to create.
Figure 5 Contrast wasn’t too bad this day and this single image has pretty good detail throughout.
Figure 6 This is the HDR version. While it wasn’t necessary to control contrast, I prefer it for the overall feel and snap particularly the sky. You may prefer the original.
Figure 7 HDR wasn’t necessary for the contrast range here.
Figure 8 But again, I prefer the texture and pop of the HDR.
What to shoot in HDR
So if you ask “what subjects can I shoot in HDR?” I, being the HDR fanatic that I am would answer almost anything you want to. Typically, most people think of hard subjects like machinery and old buildings, but give it a try with flowers and other soft subjects. The two main subjects that don’t work well are people and moving subjects. Small areas of movement like a fluttering flag cause ghosting that can usually be corrected by software. Large movements like people walking, cars and bikes moving, birds in flight won’t work. And HDR is rarely good for people photography; nobody wants all of the detail and texture in their skin enhanced.
Figure 9 What can we shoot – grungy old buildings
Figure 10 Or we can shoot beautiful buildings
Figure 11We can shoot hard industrial equipment
Figure 12 Or the softness of a water lily in rain.
Figure 13We can shoot dark stormy skies
Figure 14 Or postcard blue skies
When do we shoot HDR?
The short answer is anytime. Night, sunset, sunrise, midday, good skies, bad skies, high contrast light, dappled uneven light, even low contrast all work. I was taught not to shoot between 10AM and 2PM, because the light was too contrasty with unpleasant shadows. Now with HDR, we can even work around that.
Figure 15 Nighttime
Figure 16 Sunrise
Figure 17 Midday bright sun
Figure 18 Sunset
Figure 19 How about HDR for people?
Figure 20 Probably not if you ever want to photograph them again. HDR is not flattering to skin.
We can even do HDR Panoramas
The trick here is to make your brackets in manual mode. Once you have your brackets shift over leaving about 20% overlap, then repeat for as many sequences as it takes to cover your panorama area. Then you must process each of the HDR sequences exactly the same way, so the images will blend well when merged into a panorama.
Figure 21 5 HDR images were stitched to create this panorama
How to Bracket
There are a couple of ways to bracket. The most important thing is to keep the aperture constant and bracket by varying time. If the aperture changes, it will slightly alter the look of each image and they will not line up properly when combining the images for HDR. Shoot in either aperture priority or manual mode. Also focus must stay constant. Either use manual focus, or set your camera for back button focus, focus once and don’t change it for any of the shots in the bracket series.
I prefer to shoot all of my brackets on a tripod. Some of the software programs will align images that are slightly off from being hand held. But unless you are in very bright light, you will run into issues with slow shutter speed and camera movement. Also I find it best to turn off image stabilization (IS, VR, OS). And shoot at the lowest possible ISO. HDR photography often seems to work best at small apertures, so you will sometimes have to increase ISO. Just be aware that HDR tends to increase noise.
Whichever mode you use, take a meter reading and shoot exposures below that, at the meter reading and above the meter reading. You can manually adjust your exposures by changing your shutter speed. You decrease exposure by setting faster shutter speed, and increase exposure with slower shutter speed. In a dark room, it’s very common for the slow exposures to be 30 sec or longer.
Most current cameras can be set to bracket automatically. On my Canon 5D Mark III and 7D Mark II I can set the camera to shoot 2, 3, 5, 7 or 9 brackets up to 3 stops apart. Nikon I believe only lets you set up to 1 stop apart. On most cameras once you set the bracketing, set the drive to high speed and press and hold the shutter and the camera will shoot the set number of brackets and stop. On my Canon I can set the drive to 2 sec self timer, press the shutter and after 2 seconds it will shoot the whole sequence. That way I don’t need a cable release, but I don’t get vibration from pressing the shutter.
Every camera is different, so read the manual to find out how to set bracketing and practice it before going out to shoot.
How Much to Bracket
Look at your bracketed images and make sure the darkest image has good detail in the brightest highlights that are important and the brightest image has good detail in the darkest shadows. If they don’t, then either increase the number of brackets, the stops between brackets or both.
I usually bracket in 2 stop intervals. In average or low contrast light such as cloudy days 3 brackets is usually enough. Bright contrasty sunny days may require 5 brackets. And situations with vary dark areas and extreme bright may require 7 or even 9 brackets. This would typically be shooting inside a dimly lit building (or car) where you also can see out windows in bright daylight.
Here is a less technical way of looking at it. It’s always better to have more brackets than you need, than not have enough. You can delete that solid black image and the solid white image in a second. But what if you traveled 700 miles, paid for a workshop or rented a location and come home to process and realize you don’t have enough brackets to cover the shadows and highlights? When will you ever be there again, and how much would it cost to go back and reshoot? If you look at it that way a few extra brackets are cheap insurance.
Here is a 5 shot bracket and the resulting image. Notice the detail in shadows and highlights at each end.
Figure 22 -4 Stops to get detail in the clouds
Figure 23 -2 stops
Figure 24 normal exposure
Figure 25 +2 sops
Figure 26 +4 stops for detail in the shadow under the dash
Figure 27 the HDR assembled from 5 brackets.
Below you can see what happens when you don’t have enough brackets. The software is forced to try to bring out detail where very little exists. In dark areas this results in poor detail with lots of noise.
Figure 28 The same image processed using only the three middle exposures. Notice the noise and loss of detail under the dash.
A Little Known Secret
Everyone assumes I shoot everything in HDR, and for the most part they’re right. I do shoot HDR brackets for almost every inanimate subject. The secret is I don’t always use them to create an HDR image. If I see that I can get all of the detail I want in a single image, I’ll process the one image in the sequence that has the best exposure and the feel I’m after. The nice part is that even if I wind up not doing an HDR, I have a range of exposures from which to choose.
In the next few articles I’ll discuss how to process an HDR image in NIK HDR Efex II, Lightroom, Photoshop, and Photomatix. And in the last article I’ll explain how to finish and fine-tune the image in Photoshop.
I have converted all of my old articles into web format and put them on my website under the “Articles” heading. I’ll be adding this and all future articles so that my followers (both of them) can find everything in one location.
I have shot several air shows back in the film days and now more than a dozen in digital. I’m certainly not an expert, but here are a few tips I have found through trial and error.
Don’t sit in bleachers or areas with tight packed seating. Take a folding chair, arrive early and stake out a location as close as possible. Or skip the chair and roam around. If there is a special photographer’s option, it’s definitely worth the extra money.
If the air show is scheduled for 2 days, plan on attending both days. At night review your work from the first day, so you can correct your mistakes or get the shots you missed on day one. Also one day may have better weather than the other, or prettier skies. Even bad weather can work to your advantage. High humidity or even light mist can create visible cone shaped “vapors” as a jet approaches 700 MPH. They last a split second, so shoot at a high frame rate when conditions are right for this effect.
Panning is a critical skill for air show photography and you need to practice beforehand by shooting moving cars, bikes, birds or animals. Remember to pan smoothly with the aircraft, and don’t stop your pan as you shoot. Shooting at your camera’s highest frame rate will make it more likely that least one shot out of a sequence will be acceptably sharp. There will be lots of blurred shots, so remember it only takes one good shot.
For most photography, you’ll want the very longest lens that you own, particularly for solo acts. A 100-400mm lens is a good zoom range. For formations of three or more planes, a 70-200 on a crop sensor or with a 1.4 teleconverter may work. Image stabilization or vibration reduction can be a real help. Forget the tripods and even monopods for planes in flight. You’ll be panning so quickly that hand held is the way to go. For static displays you may want wider angle lenses. If you have access before the crowds you may be able to use a tripod, but for safety don’t attempt to use it in a crowd.
Make sure your camera’s autofocus is set for moving subjects. On Canon cameras this is AI Servo and on Nikons it is AF-C. Make sure you are not on single shot focus mode, and double check that autofocus is not turned off on the lens. Every professional I know uses back button focus, where the focusing function is reassigned from the shutter button to a rear button. Check your manual for how to do this.
Make sure your camera and sensor are clean, your battery is fully charged, and your card is empty and formatted. Large capacity cards like 32GB can be very useful. Make sure you have extra cards and batteries. Many air show prohibit backpacks and camera bags, so make sure you can carry what you need on your person.
For jets, you will want a fast shutter speed, 1/1000 sec or faster. Even at this shutter speed, you need to practice panning smoothly to minimize blur. At 600 MPH a jet is moving almost 1000 feet for second. At 1/1000 shutter speed it will move 1 foot and be blurred without smooth panning. I usually use shutter priority, 1/1000, and set an ISO that will allow f/8 or f/11. On a clear day this is usually ISO 200 or 400. On a cloudy day I may even need ISO 800. For crossing shots where two jets are each flying 600MPH toward each other, closing speed is 2000 feet per second. You must be panning on one plane and begin firing on burst mode as they approach each other. If you wait until you see both planes in the viewfinder, you have probably already missed the shot. If you try to anticipate where the aircraft will cross and hold steady on that point both will be blurred. I will say that even with a fast frame rate, there is lots of luck involved.
For prop planes, you do not want a fast shutter speed, as it freezes all propeller movement and looks very unnatural. Something between 1/30 and 1/80 will create a full prop circle or close to it. At these speeds panning is essential, and even with practice you will still have lots of blurred shots. 1/100 to 1/200 will still show enough prop blur to be believable. I usually use shutter priority, 1/30 to 1/100, and set an ISO that will allow f/8 or f/11. On a clear day this is usually ISO 100 or 200. On a cloudy day I may even need ISO 400. For helicopters, a shutter speed of 1/30 second or slower is required to blur the rotor blades. Even with good technique, expect lots of rejects.
Exposure can be difficult, particularly if you are shooting into the sun, in bright gray overcast, or if the aircraft are in front of bright white clouds. Shoot some test shots and review before the flights that you are most interested in. I find I’m often at +2/3 or even + 1 full stop.
Non Photography Tips
HYDRATE! At most shows you are in direct sun for the duration and it is easy to dehydrate. At the last air show I attended, there were several medical emergencies due to dehydration, and the temperature was only in the mid 80’s. Drink plenty of fluids before entering the venue. Most shows prohibit coolers and outside food and drink, so bring money for food and drinks from the vendors.
Use sun protection. Large hats, long sleeve shirts, sunscreen and sunglasses are all useful. Don’t forget sunscreen on the back of your hands. You don’t want sunscreen on your fingers or palms as this may damage your camera’s finish. Dressing in layers and wearing moisture wicking fabrics can keep you cool in hot weather or warm in cool weather. You will probably be on your feet most of the day. Wear comfortable, sturdy shoes.
The Opportunities
There are several air shows held in Georgia and Tennessee. The Great Tennessee Air Show is held annually in June in Smyrna and the recent show featured the Blue Angels. Wings Over North Georgia in Rome, GA is held each fall and Usually features the Blue Angels or thunderbirds and numerous other acts.. This is one of the few air shows I know of that has special passes available for photographers. Photographers have a tent and seating close to the flight line, drinks, and private restrooms. Also reserved parking, and early morning access to photograph the static displays before the crowds arrive. There are a limited number of passes available and they are worth the extra cost.
The Blue Angels practice on Tuesdays and Wednesdays in Spring and Summer at the Pensacola Naval Air Station Museum. When you get there, see one of the guides for access to a separate area for photographers. It has never been crowded when I’ve been there. See the official web site for dates and times.
2021 Foreward When I was doing my original “Basic Photography” series I put off writing about composition for a long time because I knew it was going to be a difficult article to write. There are whole books written on composition, so it’s difficult to do justice to this important subject in one article. And as you’ll see, composition is very subjective. If you’ve read (and done the exercises) the articles on exposure, aperture, and shutter speed, this article should round out a basic intro to photography.
In this article I’m going to talk about photographic composition. It is undoubtedly one of the basic foundations of photography, but one of the hardest to define, understand and master. Most of the photography basics can be evaluated objectively; within limits, a photograph is well exposed, it’s either sharp or it isn’t, the color balance is right or it isn’t. But composition is subjective; there is no absolute right or wrong composition. No two photographers will see and compose a scene exactly the same way. It is why on a field trip five photographers can stand shoulder to shoulder and get five very different images.
When we talk about photographers “having a good eye”, we’re referring to their ability to compose a photograph in a way that effectively guides the viewer to see what they want you see. Some lucky photographers seem to just naturally have a good eye, it’s intuitive and instinctive for them. They make fast progress learning, because the technical aspects are relatively easy to learn. Others master technical concepts quickly, or trust their camera to properly expose and focus, but their progress is slower because they haven’t learned to see photographically yet.
“There are two people in every photograph: the photographer and the viewer”― Ansel Adams
And even different viewers will see a photograph differently. Photographers see an image differently from non-photographers. A portrait photographer and the model see an image in very different ways. People from other parts of the world will look at photos differently. We read left to right, so we tend to scan images left to right. In countries that read right to left, viewers will scan images right to left and thus see an image much differently than we do.
Definitions
“Composition is the strongest way of seeing.” —Edward Weston
Composition describes the placement of objects and elements within a photograph. Those elements include line, color, texture, pattern, form, shape, and light. We can use principles such as relationship and perspective, balance, contrast. simplicity, rhythm and flow, and unity and cohesiveness to help arrange the elements.
I look at composition as using all of our photographic tools to guide our viewers through the photograph. Ideally, we want to lead the viewer through the image to our subject and hold his interest. We want to keep our viewer’s eyes within our image and not lead his eyes out of the image.
Composition begins before we shoot.
Whether we actively think about it or not, composition begins before we even look through the viewfinder. Our choice of lens focal length, aperture, and shutter speed and whether we shoot vertically or horizontally all effect the composition. Most important is deciding what our subject is, and what other elements to include or leave out and how to arrange them. In some types of photography like portraits and still life, we have the ability to move and arrange our subjects. In other areas we can’t arrange the elements, but we can move our camera to change the viewpoint, and the relationship of objects within the image.
“A good photograph is knowing where to stand.” —Ansel Adams
The “RULES”
“The code is more what you call guidelines than actual rules” –Captain Barbosa, Pirates of the Caribbean
You will hear and read about the rules of composition, and many of them are contradictory. If the rules were hard and fast, there would only be one right way to photograph a subject, and we all know that’s not the case. Some will say rules are meant to be broken, but realize that it’s usually more effective to understand the rules before you break them. Think about these “rules” as guidelines as you look through your camera and think about what your subject is and how you can direct your viewer’s eye through the image to the subject and keep it within the image.
Avoid centering your subject.
“Dead Center is Deadly” – Rick Sammon
Dead center or bull’s-eye composition is often the first choice for the beginning photographer. It’s so easy to place the subject in the center focus point (after all we do want it in focus don’t we) and leave it there. The problem is that it generally presents a static image with no interest or sense of flow or movement. However, some subjects really seem to demand a centered viewpoint, but break this rule carefully.
Rule of Thirds
In the rule of thirds, grid lines divide the image frame into thirds horizontally and vertically. The four intersections of these lines are “power points” that tend to draw the eye. Thinking of the rule of thirds helps avoid the dead center look.
Here you can see and feel the difference in centered and rule of thirds composition. Which is more interesting and dynamic?
Leading Lines
Lines have a powerful ability to lead our eye through a photograph. In particular “S” and “C” curves create a graceful flow. Be aware that the wrong lines may also draw your viewer right out of your image.
Framing
Finding a natural frame through which to shoot your main subject can focus the viewer’s attention and keep it from wandering out of the image.
Contrast and Color Contrast
The eye is drawn to the area of greatest contrast. So in a dark photograph the eye will be drawn to the lightest element, and in a bright photograph the eye will be drawn to the darkest element. Also in a photograph with very little color, the eye will be drawn to the most intense color.
Fill the Frame
“If your pictures aren’t good enough, you aren’t close enough.” Robert Capa
One way to emphasize your subject is to eliminate anything that doesn’t add to the main subject. There is no wasted space around the subject. Look at the first portrait and look at how much wasted black space surrounds the subject. It’s also dead center. The second portrait completely fills the frame.
Negative Space
This would seem to completely contradict the rule about filling the frame, but sometimes it is effective to have a lot of space surrounding the subject. It should be relatively simple and not detract from the subject.
Patterns
Repeating patterns tend to draw and hold the eye. A repeating pattern with one small break can be very effective at creating interest.
Symmetry
This would seem to directly contradict the rules about not centering the subject and the rule of thirds. Yet some subjects almost demand symmetry. Architecture and head on views of cars come to mind. and If you use it make sure your subject is as symmetrical as possible. A picture that is almost, but not quite symmetrical looks like an accident.
Rule of Odds
If there is more than one subject, odd numbers tend to be more interesting than even.
Simplicity
Have you ever looked at a picture that was just so busy it was hard to tell what the subject was supposed to be? Often a much simpler picture has more impact. Here are two photos from Sloss Furnaces taken on the same trip. Does the simple picture tend to hold your eye more than the very busy picture?
Balance
Balance means balancing an object in one part of the frame with an object of similar weight in the opposite part of the picture. Visual weight may be based on size, color or brightness.
Give Subjects Space to Move
If there is a subject that should be moving the eye tends to anticipate where it will be going and move in that direction. If the moving object (or person or animal) is too close to the edge of the frame, the eye goes right out of the frame. Generally, a moving subject should have more room in front of it than behind.
Subjects Should Be Looking into the Frame
It’s natural to follow the gaze of people and animals. If they are near the edge and looking out of the frame, the eye tends to go right out of the picture. If the eyes are toward the center of the frame, the viewer will tend to stay within the picture. In the first picture below, whichever horse and rider you look at, your eye is directed to stay within the photo. In the second photo, through the magic of Photoshop both horses and riders have been turned around. Look at either horse and rider and your eye immediately leaves the image.
Border Patrol
Though this isn’t often listed as a rule of composition, it’s important none the less. Check the edges of your image for items protruding into the frame without a source and with no reason for being there. This is a common mistake in landscapes. In the picture below, the bare branch comes out of nowhere and pulls the eye. The larger leafy branches obviously belong to a large tree and have more reason to be there, and they actually act as a framing device.
Keep the horizon level
A horizon line that is not level is very unsettling The image below is only two degrees off level, but it feels very wrong compared to the level image. Either level your camera carefully when you shoot, or straighten it in post production.
Don’t Center the Horizon
A perfectly centered horizon tends to create a static composition. Generally if the interest is in the sky, put the horizon along the lower third. If the interest is in the foreground, put it along the top third. The exception is an image with reflections where a centered horizon is much more acceptable.
Use Foreground Objects to Create a Feeling of Depth
Having a strong foreground object, particularly with a wide angle lens can create a greater feeling of depth and dimension. Not having a foreground makes a flatter image.
Crop Happens
A lot of photographers seem to have the belief that they should not be cropping their images. Or that even if they crop, they must conform to their camera’s format or to the “standard” formats like 8×10 or 11×14. Not all images fit perfectly into 2×3, 4×3, or 4×5 formats. Cropping can remove non essential parts of the image to concentrate attention on the subject. Often we can’t photograph a subject without including things we don’t want in the picture, and good cropping can make a huge improvement. Think of cropping as a second chance to get you composition right. Let your artistic judgement decide the cropping and aspect ratio. Remember that if something in your image isn’t helping to focus attention on your subject, it’s probably distracting and needs to go.
I often find a wide aspect ratio looks more dramatic and is a good way to focus attention on a wide subject while eliminating distracting foregrounds and backgrounds.
When you have an image that could work as a horizontal, or vertical image, try a square crop. It’s worked for Hasselblad for decades.
Practice Exercises
Even if you aren’t one of those naturally gifted photographers with a “great eye” you can definitely improve with some training and practice. Here are a couple of exercises to get you started.
1) Get an object like an artificial flower and put it in front of a plain wall or background. Photograph it horizontally with the bloom in each corner, at each of the rule of third “power points” and dead center. Repeat vertically.
2) Add a second flower. Place one of the flowers on one of the power points, and then move the other flower to each of the other power points and dead center. Do this exercise in horizontal and vertical formats.
3) Pick a subject and photograph it so that it doesn’t fill the frame. Then zoom in and/or move closer and take another shot. Repeat until the whole image doesn’t fit within the frame. Try different cropping formats to move your subject around in the image.
4) Shoot a landscape or cityscape fairly loose and then in your editing program try cropping in different formats and moving the scene around.
5) Find 10 of your pictures that you like, open them and concentrate on how your eyes move through the picture. It would be helpful to make prints and actually mark your visual path on the print or draw it in Photoshop. Also look at the image and see which of the above rules help guide your eyes.
6) Go to a good photographic site like 500PX and find images that appeal to you. Analyze them as above, looking for which rules might apply and how your eyes move through the image.
7) Go out and shoot 10,000 photos. “Your first 10,000 photographs are your worst.” ― Henri Cartier-Bresson
In last month’s article I talked about lenses, focal lengths, and perspective. This month I thought I’d take it a step further and talk about lens selection for portraits or any people pictures for that matter. Some would say that shooting portraits is beyond basic, and they might be right. But at some point, even beginning photographers will take photos of people and lens choice may make the difference between a good or bad shot; it could mean the difference between a flattering portrait and an unflattering portrait. Poor lens choice could even add weight to your subject, and then you know you’re going to be in trouble.
Head and shoulder portraits
This is what many people think about when they think of portraits. This is probably the area where lens selection is most important because the wrong lens can distort the facial features. Last month we discussed how placing a wide angle lens close to a subject exaggerates perspective and the difference in size in near and far subjects. These same effects happen with a face; we have the tip of the nose close to us, the eyes a bit farther back and the ears still further back. Add to that the fact that many people don’t enjoy being photographed, but anyone would hate having a camera stuck right up in their face. A comfortable shooting distance for most people is 4 to 6 feet. Shoot closer than this and not only will you have distortion caused by unnatural perspective, but you will have invaded your subjects personal space and made them uneasy if not mad.
Again I’m going to refer to focal lengths as if they were a full frame camera. If you use a crop body camera convert the focal length I’m using by dividing by your camera’s crop factor. For example if I’m using a 100mm lens on a full frame camera, for a camera with a 1.6 crop factor the equivalent lens would be 100/1.6 or about 62mm.
The focal length best suited for head and shoulder portraits is usually in the 90-135mm range. One of my favorite lenses for tight headshots is the 100mm macro lens. Shorter lenses tend to exaggerate the length of the nose and chin, while lenses that are too long tend to compress the face, causing it to lose its three dimensionality and look heavier.
Below is a series showing the effect of varying focal lengths on a tight portrait.
Figure 1 A 24mm shows very unflattering distortion of the face
Figure 2 At 50mm distortion is less, but the nose is still large.
Figure 3 By 85mm we are close to a good perspective and the camera is a comfortable distance from her face.
Figure 4 100mm is in the range that many photographers believe is ideal for tight portraits. There is no unflattering distortion.
Figure 5 135mm is also in the range that many photographers believe is ideal for tight portraits. Again there is no unflattering distortion.
Figure 6 For some faces 200mm may compress the features too much. Compare this with the 100mm or 135mm shots and the face seems a bit heavier.
Figure 7 For some faces a 200mm can work well.
Figure 8 For some faces a 200mm can work well. This model has a long neck and narrow nose.
1/2 to 3/4 body shots
For shots where the frame is filled by 1/2 to 3/4 of the body height 50 to 80mm works well.
Figure 9 This is roughly a 3/4 length shot at 70mm.
Full length body shots
For shots where the frame is filled or nearly filled by the body height 35 to 80mm works well.
Figure 10 35mm works for this full length shot.
More than full length
When the whole body doesn’t come close to filling the frame even wide angle lenses can work well.
Figure 11 Since the two men are not close and are small in the frame a wide angle will not cause distortion.
Breaking the normal rules
There are times you want a different visual effect, or are limited to shooting in a tight space or don’t have the right lens available. It is possible to use wider than recommended lenses and still make an effective picture.
Figure 12 My model wanted the apple to be prominent in the picture and a 17mm lens did that. Notice that her body proportions are exaggerated, but this was OK for the shot she had in mind.
Figure 13 It was necessary to use a 19mm lens to get the right perspective of the teeth and hygienist.
Figure 14 This model wanted her skateboard to be the main focus of the shot. 19mm makes her feet look disproportionate to her head and shoulders, but the shot says “skateboarder”
Figure 15 With the model squatting down, this is probably a 1/2 body shot, and even though it is a bit wide, 35mm worked.
Figure 16 A narrow staircase forced me to use a 24mm lens, but by keeping the camera parallel to the subject and at waist level I was able to minimize distortion.
Soft focus Lenses
It isn’t always necessary or desirable to have everything razor sharp in an image. Soft focus lenses create flare that decreases sharpness and contrast in a way that is hard to duplicate in post processing. The only fully auto focusing and auto exposure lens I know of is the Canon 135mm soft focus lens. It can be set to shoot at normal sharpness or used at varying degrees of softness.
I also have two old, cheap and totally manual lenses that have to be adapted to my camera by the old T-mount adapter system. One is the all plastic Sima 100mm soft focus lens. This lens slides in and out to focus, and has two plastic inserts to change the aperture. I also have an old Spiratone Portragon lens. It is an all metal 100 lens that also uses the T-mount system. I don’t use these lenses very often, but they have a unique effect and also can give an antique look to a picture. Neither of these lenses are still in production, but they sometimes show up on EBay or at used camera stores. They can be adapted to virtually any camera with the right T-mount.
Figure 17 Shot with the 100mm Portragon lens. It is no longer made, but used ones turn up occasionally. I used B&W, sepia toning and a vignette to make it look like an antique picture.
A Cheat sheet for focal lengths for portraits
Here is a table with recommended focal lengths. In general it is better to use a lens that is too long rather than too wide as long as you have room to frame your subject properly.
Size
Full Frame
1.5 crop Nikon
1.6 Crop Canon
2.0 crop micro 4/3
Head and shoulder
90-135mm
60-90mm
55-85mm
45-67mm
1/2 to 3/4 body
65-85mm
43-60mm
40-53mm
32-42mm
Full length
35-50mm
24-35mm
22mm-32mm
17-25mm
More than full length
24-35mm
16-24mm
15mm-22mm
10-18mm
Practice assignment
1) If you can find a willing portrait subject, photograph them in tight portrait, waist length and full length views with wide, normal and telephoto lengths and notice how the lens affects the look of each type of picture. Do not show these to your subject, since we know many of these will not be flattering. Even with an explanation, someone is very likely to get their self esteem hurt, whether they say so or not. It is not worth risking hurting someone’s self image. Just explain that these are a test, and NOBODY but you will ever see them.
2) Shoot with a wide or very wide angle lens to show the subject in his or her environment or to use distorted perspective creative. Again don’t show these pictures.
