Category Archives: HDR

Sunrise Shadows

Posted by Mike on

Indian River near Melbourne, FL

I went looking for the sunrise the other morning and it did not disappoint. I was at the small park on the Melbourne side of the 192 Causeway over the Indian River. I was like a kid in a candy store. Running all around the area grabbing pictures. I’ll warn everyone now that there will be more pictures on the way… 🙂

This image is a manual blend of three exposures. I used the normal exposure for the water, blended in the under-exposed image for the sky and the over-exposed image for the rocks. After the blending I worked a little of my normal processing with the Topaz Labs plug-ins (Clarity, Adjust and Detail).

MLCreations Photography: Landscapes &emdash; Sunrise Shadows

Sunrise Shadows
Olympus OM-D E-EM1, M. Zuiko 12-40mm f/2.8, {0.6, 1/3 & 1/6s bracket}, 12mm, f/16, ISO 200

Review Everything

Posted by Mike on

Wildcats Student Center
SUNY Polytechnic Institute

Normally on a Thursday I pick my daughter up from college around 5pm. This works out good for me since I generally get out of work at 4pm and then I have a little time if there are any errands I need to run or if I have something I want to go photograph. Last night she texted me she was going out with her friends for a little while and I had until 5:30pm before she needed to be picked up.

We had a snow/rain mixture going through our area which at the time I was leaving work had paused. I had some wonderful clouds moving around and the sun was getting ready to set. I headed over to the SUNY Poly campus to grab some dusk images of the buildings. I was very excited about this image of the Student Center.

The dark blue sky contrasted nicely with the grass and also with the lights from the building. I found a small puddle to get some reflections and add a nice visual element to my composition. I setup the camera to capture a three exposure bracket and fired away. A quick look at one of the images had me already thinking about how I was going to process the image so I packed up everything and headed back to the car.

I really like the image, except for the lens flare! Gggrrr! I didn’t review the whole image before I packed everything away. Now that lens flare is all I can see when I look at the image. Maybe I’ll be able to ‘hide’ it with my post processing skills.

MLCreations Photography: Blog Post Related &emdash; Wildcats Original

Wildcats Student Center – Original
Olympus OM-D E-M1, M. Zuiko 12-40mm f/2.8, {4, 10 & 25s bracket}, 12mm, f/ll, ISO 200

The dreaded lens flare up close! As you can probably tell by the tone of this post… my skills were not adequate to the task.

MLCreations Photography: Blog Post Related &emdash; Lens Flare

Wildcats Student Center – Lens Flare
Olympus OM-D E-M1, M. Zuiko 12-40mm f/2.8, {4, 10 & 25s bracket}, 12mm, f/ll, ISO 200

In order to remove that visual distraction from my image I changed the crop to 1×1. Still a nice picture but not the one I had in my head as I was on the campus capturing images. This version of the image does not have the same impact for me as the top image.

MLCreations Photography: Blog Post Related &emdash; Wildcats Student Center

Wildcats Student Center
Olympus OM-D E-M1, M. Zuiko 12-40mm f/2.8, {4, 10 & 25s bracket}, 12mm, f/ll, ISO 200

This reinforced a practice I seem to always forget when I get excited about a particular image. Review more closely to ensure you have everything you need to create the image you are so excited about. I have to remind myself of this more often than I should.

I still had a great time running around the campus, tripod and camera in tow, grabbing images of the buildings. It was a good night!

Temple of Quetzalcoatl

Posted by Mike on

Mexico Pavilion, World Showcase,
Epcot, Walt Disney World

Temple of Quetzalcoatl

Temple of Quetzalcoatl
Nikon D7100, Tokina 12-28mm f/4, {4, 8, 15 & 30s bracket}, 19mm, f/11, ISO 100

Jambo House

Posted by Mike on

Animal Kingdom Lodge, Walt Disney World

Jambo House Olympus OM-D E-M10, M. Zuiko 14-42mm 3.5-5.6, {0.6 & 1/25s bracket}, 14mm, f/11, ISO 200

Jambo House
Olympus OM-D E-M10, M. Zuiko 14-42mm 3.5-5.6, {0.6 & 1/25s bracket}, 14mm, f/11, ISO 200

Karamell-Kuche (Caramel Kitchen)

Posted by Mike on

Germany Pavilion, World Showcase,
Epcot, Walt Disney World

I admit one of the reasons I love walking around the World Showcase at Epcot is the variety of food items I can sample. I am somewhat adventurous and willing to try new things. This is part of the reason I love attending the Epcot International Food & Wine Festival in the fall. There are a few staples though that I always return to and the Werthers Karamell-Kuche is definitely worth a visit.

Hi, my name is Mike and I am a chocoholic. It probably has been less than an hour since my last infusion of chocolate.

Combine chocolate with Werthers caramel and I am hooked! There is a chocolate covered caramel in this shop that I buy every visit. I shouldn’t but I do. There are a lot of other tempting delights but I try to limit myself to the one treat (that doesn’t always work).

I have been trying to capture this building at night for quite a few visits now. Mu last trip in May was my most successful attempt. I captured a three shot bracket, combined it with Photomatix and finished off the image with OnOne’s Perfect Effects 9.

Karamell-Kuche Nikon D7100, Tokina 12-28mm f/4, {5, 8 & 16s bracket}, 20mm, f/11, ISO 200

Karamell-Kuche
Nikon D7100, Tokina 12-28mm f/4, {5, 8 & 16s bracket}, 20mm, f/11, ISO 200