High Dynamic Range

I've just discovered a new form of photography and I have to share it with everyone. I'd been seeing and hearing about something called "HDR" all over photo sites I visit and finally looked into just what it stands for. It stands for High Dynamic Range and it refers to a technique that brings out all the detail in a picture, the detail all over the picture, and in an evenly balanced way. It's amazing, actually!

The picture just below employs this technique and involves using software that has HDR capabilities:

This is the street where I live in Norris City. By combining three differently exposed images of the same exact scene, the HDR software, which in this case is Adobe Photoshop CS2, combines the three images and choosed the best exposure settings for each specific spot in the picture. It lightens up the darkest areas and tones down the sky, which almost always has blown highlights in the lightest of places, and melds them together in such a way that everything looks perfectly exposed. I don't know how it does, but it does.
I also found out that there is a similar process that results in finished images looking the same way, but you start with only one original image. It's called Tone Mapping. Say you have one good exposure of something and want to improve different areas of it. You can take that one photo in your photo-editing software and make 3 different exposures which bring out the darkest, medium and lightest areas to best effect. By then combining them back together using the HDR software, you still get an image with loads of detail in all areas. The picture below was one I was pretty happy with as far as the exposure settings went:

And here is that same picture - which I thought had lost some detail in the darkest and most washed out places - after being subjected to the Tone Mapping process using the HDR software:


Pretty neat, huh?

Here are some of my other pictures I have Tone Mapped and you just wouldn't believe the improvement over the original digital file!

All in all, I'd say if you haven't tried this process yet, you need to look into it. The difference it can make in what you thought was an old, lifeless image can be startling!

Death By Tumbling

Readers of this blog, (if there are any....) know that I am an avid photographer of wildlife, specifically of Butterflies. But, every now and then, I'll see an interesting bug and shoot it, too. At this point, I'd like to mention that there is this wonderful website out there where anybody can post a picture of an unknown insect and the good folks that frequent the place, all volunteers of course, will give it a name for you. This is especially good if you've just seen a weird-looking bug that has crawled into your house or one that flew by your head while you were in the backyard working on your tan. This website is called Bugguide.net. I have a page on that site where I post my Butterfly pictures, but it is also a repository of my other kinds of insects - beetles, moths, ants and bees, etcetera. I know you'll just want to click on this link and rush right over to see all the wonderful insects there, but please try to wait until the end of the blog. Here's the link to my page.

When you go there, just remember that the newest pictures I've posted show first and older ones are found by clicking on the page numbers.

One particular bug you'll see there is a beetle I was mighty proud of when it was first posted. It was eventually identified as a Tumbling Flower Beetle, and it's scientific name is Glipa hilaris. Here is what it looks like:

And another view:

The reason I was so proud of this particular insect over others I had photographed was because at the time I posted it, there were no other photographs of this elusive insect known to be in existence. That's anywhere in the world. It had been described a few times, but never photographed. Naturally, after I had posted the first one on Buguide.net, it caused quite a furor for a few days afterwards. Then, a couple weeks later, another photograph of one turned up, this one in Florida, and my euphoria was tempered somewhat. But, I like to think my picture was better because it was the first. So, if there are any Insect Guide Book publishers out there looking to purchase a good photo of this rare insect for your next textbook, you know who you have to see.

And to top it all off, I even saw another one of these beetles and got an even better shot of it. It is pictured below. Isn't it just the greatest beetle you ever saw? Now you can click on that link and go see all the wonderful insects that await!

Random Buttefly Encounters

These are just a few quick photos of some of the different kinds of butterflies that I have come in contact with so far this season - literally! They just seem to like me. I thought my faithful readers might enjoy the wide variety that graces my person on a regular basis.

Butterfly Season

This is just a quick update, as promised, to let you know that I have been out there chasing those butterflies this year! Here are just a few of the ones I have managed to capture with my camera so far.

The Great Butterfly Chase Of 2007 Has Begun

Viceroy Butterfly

Well, butterflies are starting to emerge from their long winter, at least here in Southern Illinois they are. And once again, it's like track season for me - just to keep up with them is a marathon! I will be posting some of the ones I manage to photograph as the season progresses, but for now, here are a few of the beauties I was able to run down last year.

Red-Spotted Purple Admiral

This very distinctive butterfly has the honor of being, not the first butterfly I ever photographed - that would probably go to an Orange Sulphur or an Eastern Tiger Swallowtail - but the one that got me hooked on photographing them in a serious manner. And if you've ever tried to get a picture of a butterfly, you know how hard it can be just getting them to sit still for a couple seconds. They are notorious in their utter disregard for the photographer. This one was captured sitting on a leaf in late afternoon just before the sun went down on September 4th, 2006 and I don't think I've been the same since.

Pearl Crescent

This butterfly is much smaller than it looks - it was only about half as high as my lens cap, and it's a relative small one as lenscaps go. It flew around for awhile and then alighted on this tomato vine. You can see some unripened ones in the top right of the picture.

Eastern Comma

This butterfly looks a whole lot like one named a Question Mark. You may ask, why the punctuation nomenclature? Well, believe it or not, on the underside of an Eastern Comma's wing is a little white spot shaped like a comma. And correspondingly, on the underside of a Question Mark's wing is what looks exactly like a question mark - a squiggly line with a dot below it. Both species really like fruit, which is why this one is sitting on an apple that had fallen off the tree.

Cloudless Sulphur

For a lot of the butterfly season, at least it seems this way in my part of the state, Sulphurs and Whites fly around a lot, but they don't land very often. Which makes it extremely hard to get a decent shot of one. This Cloudless Sulphur, however, came through late in the season and I suppose he was tired or something, because he sat on this leaf for quite some time to allow me to take his picture. He was about 8 or 9 feet off the ground, so I had to just hold the camera up at arm's length and point it in his general direction. It was sunny bright that day, but the tree he chose to roost in was heavily shaded. Hence the obvious use of flash to lighten him enough for the photo. It's harder than it seems holding a camera that high, with the lens zoomed in all the way, to get something positioned in the center of the frame. Not every shot actually had the complete butterfly in it, but this one did, so that's the one I used.

Red Admiral

This was another butterfly that sat still and gave me plenty of opportunities. Several different views were captured, albeit halfway up a ladder. He landed on this tree trunk, but was about 10 feet off the ground. I couldn't even hold my camera up that high by stretching way out. But, he looked content to sit there awhile, so I went and got a step ladder, placed it against the tree and climbed up to his level. Even then he didn't fly away for about 10 minutes or so. His colors were very distinct. Don't you think so?

Common Buckeye

This one looks just like he has large eyes on his wings. I guess it's to frighten off anybody that might be interested in eating him for lunch. Well, those are just a few of many species I catalogued here last year. I'm hoping that this year will be even better, so stay tuned for the results!