Albertdebruijn.com » HDR

Keys View – Joshua Tree National Park

albert — Fri, 30 Jul 2010 04:50:11 +0000

At the end of the Salton View Road in Joshua Tree National Park is a lookout called Keys View. No it has nothing to do with the Florida Keys, they are clear across the country no where near here. In fact there is barely any water here as Joshua Tree National Park is desert. There are two types of desert actually: Mohave Desert in the northern, higher elevation part of the park and Colorado Desert, in the southern, lower elevation parts.

The only body of water in the neighborhood is the Salton Sea, which you can see in this pictures just beyond those mountains. Like Mono Lake, it has a high salinity level. The Salton Sea lies directly on the San Andreas Fault and, like Death Valley, lies below sea level.

Joshua Tree National Park is quite beautiful although hot. My son and I visited here to go do some hikes and take photos and went in May thinking we’d beat the real heat. Well no such luck, it turned out to be the hottest May in years and we got temperatures around 100F (37.8C). It is a dry heat which I find infinitely more bearable than humid heat, but one sure ends up drinking a lot of water!

This shot is my usual HDR shot with 3 bracketed shots and processed in Dynamic Photo HDR followed by some tweaking in Lightroom.

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Sand Harbor Sunset

albert — Fri, 23 Jul 2010 06:40:18 +0000

Sand Harbor is a piece of Lake Tahoe’s North Eastern coastline. There is a sandy beach there, but it is of particular interest to photographers because of the boulders that lie around in the water. They can make for some fantastic photographic subjects.

This shot was taken just about at sunset, which had the sun disappearing over the mountains on my right. It caused these rocks to be bathed in beautiful soft light. I was quite happy with this as I had to scramble down to this area from the road. Not particularly smart when carrying tripods and some expensive gear.

Anyway, I made it without a mishap and got this picture for my efforts.

As usual, it is an HDR comprised of my usual 3 shots. I used Photomatix (with some “gentle” setting to minimize noise), then opened in Photoshop and blended it with a layer that has some Topaz Adjust treatment to it. This all let me get great detail, nice color and minimum noise. The little noise that was there, I got rid of with the new noise reduction tool in Lightroom V3, which I find very good.

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Mono Lake Sunrise

albert — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 06:37:51 +0000

Linda and I managed a quick visit to the Lee Vining area and got to visit Bodie and Mono Lake.

My previous trips to Mono Lake always seemed to coincide with rather uninteresting weather and I never really got the shots I had imagined could be had in this wonderful location. This time however, the weather was much kinder. As you can see from the shot below, there was no wind and there were clouds. I’ll post another shot tomorrow where the clouds are more pronounced, but today’s shot is one of calmness.

The time was about 10 minutes before sunrise (which occurred at 5:37am that day). I have this cool little iPhone app that tells me when dawn starts and when sunrise (and sunset) occurs. So I knew exactly when the sun would appear and I was ready.

This is actually an HDR, comprised of 3 shots. Processed with Dynamic Photo HDR, which produces much more “natural” photos than, say, Photomatix. It also produces a heck of a lot less noise, one of the real problems with Photomatix I find.

While I would have liked to have seen a little more of the clouds, I am happy with this shot. Everything came together for me. The composition, the reflections, the colors and, perhaps most importantly, the overall “mood” of the scene.

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Lonely Bike

albert — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 06:00:49 +0000

When walking through the back streets of the picturesque Dutch town of Gouda, I spotted this lonely bike, leaning up against the wall. It struck me that bike’s blue color complimented the colors of the cobblestone and the wicker basket sort of blends in as well.

I also knew that the textures of the sandstone wall and the cobble stone pavement would look great in HDR so I couldn’t resist snapping a series of shots. Here is the result.

Bikes are everywhere in Holland of course and Linda and I, not being used to so many of them on the street, had to be on a constant lookout (they are silent too by the way).

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The old town hall in Gouda

albert — Thu, 15 Jul 2010 06:34:51 +0000

Gouda is of course famous for its cheese. Being a huge cheese lover, I can say with some authority that Gouda cheese is just wonderful. If you can get hold of the crumbly aged stuff, you’ll be in for a treat, I promise.

The town of Gouda is also a gem. It has a very picturesque town center that just oozes charm with its cobblestoned streets, gorgeous old houses and the old market square, which isn’t square but triangular.

Right in the middle of this “square” stands the old town hall pictured below. The building dates back to the 15th century, 1450 to be exact. An amazing 560 years old! Perhaps most amazing is the fact that council meetings are still held there.

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A typical street in Amsterdam

albert — Mon, 07 Jun 2010 03:18:30 +0000

Here is a shot of a typical street with a canal in Amsterdam. Not all streets have canals of course, but there is a lot of water (as is the case in much of the western part of Holland) in Amsterdam. It is of course famous for it many canals.

Linda and I walked and walked in this fabulous city. It is vibrant and very picturesque.

Sadly, there was a strike on by the workers of the city and there was garbage everywhere as it had not been collected. So sad to see such a wonderful city portrayed in such a way. On the train, a total stranger had heard us speak English and, as we entered Amsterdam, came up to us and, in very broken English, apologized for the garbage. At first we had no idea what he was talking about, but the moment we stepped out of the station, all became clear.

However, this did not spoil our appreciation of this wonderful city. We walked down little cobble-stoned streets, dodging the bicycles (which were EVERYWHERE) and stopping at every shoe shop and bakery we stumbled upon (and there are many of them, believe me). The bakeries were fun. I had told Linda of my favorite baked goodies so we had to try them all of course. We stocked up on things like Spekulaas, Gevulde Koek and Stroopwafels and munched our way through the streets of Amsterdam.

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Windmills of Kinderdijk

albert — Sun, 06 Jun 2010 07:08:15 +0000

Here are some windmills. Not from the Zaansche Schans as indicated in the previous post, but from a place called Kinderdijk.

Kinderdijk is famous for its collection of windmills. There are 19 of them clustered together, more than anywhere else in the Netherlands. While not all 19 are visible in the picture below, there are quite a few. I can count 13. How about you?

This shot is an HDR, but is only made from 2 exposures. One exposed for the grass and water, the other for the sky.

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The Zaansche Schans

albert — Fri, 04 Jun 2010 07:30:15 +0000

So Linda and I visited Holland too, not just Paris. There is a lot of water in Holland. Not surprising really as 2/5 of Holland lies below sea level. It’s why there are windmills in Holland, many were built to pump water.

There is a region called De Zaansche Schans, where there are a bunch of windmills in working order. There is one setup as a saw mill and another for grinding wheat. Yes, wind power was put to good use in the old days, kind of ironic that wind is once again a power source that is popular.

The shot below is taken just around the corner of those windmills (don’ worry, I’ll be posting pictures of them too). I loved the sky and the wide angle view of the water and house, just seem to make the composition come together for me. The two ducks were a bonus.

This is an HDR, made from 3 exposures each two stops apart.

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Early morning view over the river Seine, Paris

albert — Mon, 31 May 2010 20:38:10 +0000

It was about 6 am. Our hotel was right next to the Louvre and only a stone’s throw away from the Seine river which flows right through Paris.

I had just spent some time shooting the Louvre and the little Arc de Triomphe (see previous post) and decided to wander on and cross the river. The sky was magnificent although not a lot of color. Doing HDR shots of scenes with lots of sky can be a challenge as you’ll often get a lot of noise. This shot was one of those and presented an excellent opportunity to try the recently upgraded Topaz Denoise 4. It did an excellent job as you can see.

About this shot. Right in the center of the picture, you can see the top of the Eiffel Tower. The building in front of that is the Musee D’Orsay, which is housed in a former railway station. The museum is famous as it holds the largest collection of impressionist master pieces in the world. Linda and I wanted to visit this museum too, but we just totally ran out of time. How sad is that!

This is the left bank of the river Seine and the bridge you see there is the Pont Royal (I am standing on the Pont du Carrousel).

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The Arc de Triomphe du Carrousel

albert — Sun, 30 May 2010 00:24:01 +0000

There are two Arc de Triomphes in Paris. The famous one stands in the center of the Place Charles de Gaulle, the other one, half the size and seen here, stands directly between the Louvre museum and the Tuileries Gardens. It is called the Arc de Triomphe du Carrousel. What is so awesome about this is that it stands at the beginning of the “Axe Historique” (historical axis), a line of monuments, buildings and thoroughfares that extends from the center of Paris to the West.

In fact, you can see it on this picture.

If you look through the arch, you can see the obelisk on the Place de la Concorde. Behind that the Arc de Triomphe and those tall buildings in the background is La Defense, the business district of Paris. You are looking right through the Tuileries Gardens and the Champs Elysees. One straight line. It is about 5 miles long. Cool.

This shot was taken at about 6am on a weekday. You can tell because there are no people. During the day, there are hundreds of people here and on the weekends, the place is positively swarming.

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