PM2013 - Animal Kingdom, Everything Else

Nice photo of "The King" there Dennis. I must have 30 of those from that ride. I'll have to see if I can find one as good as yours...

Some Tree of Life from under the hurricane shelter...


Tree of Life by Dave Kliment, on Flickr

 

I think I FINALLY figured out how to fill the sky with stars...

I took a number of exposures of this... I'm talking a couple of sets of brackets using different shutter speeds. This was taken on the bridge between Everest and Nemo. It took me about 10 minutes to complete all my bracketing and then I went home and picked a couple of exposures to run through Photomatix. The exposures were far enough apart in time that the stars moved ; apart instead of schmearing together in lines like they do when I am shooting my brackets as closely together as possible. This time separation resulted in the same stars appearing in different spots on my frame. You can sort of see the star patterns repeating if you look closely enough.

I always wondered how some people have the stars looking so cool in their shots and now I think I've stumbled upon this technique.
Taken on our Pixelmania AK night 12 7 13



~Joanie

 

Here's another one run through Photomatix. I usually don't go for the weird processing but this one was sort of coming out that way and I liked the way it looked. I think the sky really adds some depth to the composition. The tones sort of add an aged vibe. It sort of reminds me of when, back in the day, someone would take a black and white picture and "Hand" color it. Those G-Damn flags are so over lit they had zero chance of being anything but blown out.



~Joanie

 

Then there is this one....



This shot is really hard because that pile of stones on the right is so over lit it takes away from the balance of lighting in the rest of the composition. Tame those stones and you've got something wonderful. I tried bracketing but I had to keep moving the tripod in and out of position because a Photopass Photographer was set up there and I had to move when an unsuspecting victim came over for a shot. ; As a result I lost track of my bracketing progression and I missed a couple of series I would have liked to try.

When I got home and started processing none of my bracket shots were working and then I hit on the idea to take an exposure that I thought would work and then make a copy of it and adjust the exposure + 1 and -1 in Camera raw so I had a 3 exposure spread to process in Photomatix.

Wa La!

From Camera Raw to Photomatix then back to Camera raw for some more pussyfooting around.

I have a lot of patience as I'm bracketing my brains out in the parks. I know that if the brackets don't all work for HDR processing I still have exposures in the set that will probably be closer to idea for a single shot OR, in this case, doing that +1, ~, -1 spread

~Joanie

 

Here is my bridge shot, taken at sunset, when I could use the sun to warm up those stones. I like how the left half of this shot is warm and the right side is the shady cooler, blue tones.



~Joanie

 

The tree of Branch falling strife. Look out below!



It should be fun to see how Avatar changes this whole park, and especially (hopefully) this tree.

~Joanie

 

I wanted to get the boat but I didn't have the shot set up correctly so I cropped the shot and got this. I love those clouds over that bridge too...



~Joanie

 

Nice series Joanie. HDR is definitely a very subjective technique where everyone's tastes are different. However on my monitor it looks like there are a number of places where the color is blown out.

Erich

 

I wonder if our perspective is changed relative to our eyesight- and possibly age...I find- I NEED more pop to see it now that I am oldish.....
If I were to change anything it would be the reflection in the water- I would "burn" that area a bit- so your eye isnt drawn so heavily to that- and more to the wonderful subject and comp- ; you have captured....Just my 1/2 cent that would take this from great to OH my GOSH!!!! there are no words...

Love them both. Thanks for sharing.



Peg

 

So... after the AK closed at 8pm Nannette and I buzzed on over to MK because we are glutton's for punishment and it didn't close until 1 am. This meant we wouldn't wind up leaving until 2 am and after I finished backing up the pictures and charging the batteries etc I wouldn't get to sleep until around 5 am. We were slackers the next day (Hollywood Studios) and after we returned the rental car we wandered over to join the gang for lunch at 50's Prime time

BUT while we were at MK we got there in time to shoot Wishes. Here are two that I have worked on so far...





I just love the Castle when she is all dressed up in her Christmas lights!




~Joanie

 

After we shot Wishes I talked Nannette into wandering over to Tomorrowland with our tripods for some TTA fun.



~Joanie

 

THEN I was wandering around and I captured this:



~Joanie

 

I am a color junkie..thanks for that last one....and the castle lights- are my favorite- nothing compares to them ;

 

Tomorrowland is fantastic for night shooting with ultra wide angle/fish eye lenses. The one thing you have to do with a fish eye is THINK like that lens. I am looking for a big something delicious that I can fill the center of the frame with and then I just bracket my shots and process in Photomatix.

~Joanie