How did I do that? (Part 1 of many to come)

In an effort to bring more visitors to my blog, I will from time to time dispense hints and tips that I use in my photography in a "behind the scenes" manner.

This time I'm showing how I made this HDR.

As you may have read earlier, I took a holiday this year in the Italian region of Switzerland. From time to time I came across really beautiful, photogenic places of worship. When I see really old churches with frescoes, I know that I have to record them using HDR. This was no exception.

It was a really warm day and to get to the church, I had to climb LOTS of steps. For this reason and because of the winding alleys and streets, I decided against taking a tripod with me. I did however, take a mini G-Clamp table top tripod. This little beast which I bought many years ago can be clamped to a ledge, table or shelf or if there are none available, can be stood of a surface thanks to two small support legs. On this occasion, I lay on the floor (to get the perspective I wanted) and mounted the camera using the G-Clamp in its "tripod" mode.

 Discussing perspective with Nikita

The clamp itself is a bit flimsy so I used the camera in self-timer mode in order not to shake it too much. Ten seconds later, I had three shots of varying brightness which I fed to my HDR programme, the results of which you can see here.

The finished result after treatment from Photomatix

The image can now be seen in Google earth or on Panoramio at full size here.

To my left was an alcove which I also found interesting. For this image, I clamped the G-Clamp to a pew.

HDR has captured the highlights and shadows

The church is "Sta. Maria del Sasso"located in Morcote, Switzerland.

Thanks for reading. If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to ask.

Garage doors

Saw these colourful garage doors whilst over the border in Germany yesterday.
Picture snapped with my Samsung Galaxy.

I't's nice to see them so big.... Part 2

You may remember I wrote a post back in June about my images being enlarged for an exhibition stand at which the company I work for was participating?

We are currently exhibiting at the Basel based Ineltec technology exhibition and the stand designer Marcel Brodbeck has again made good use of my images. He has selected several of them to be enlarged to  two meters thirty. That's about seven and a half feet!

My favourite image (below) was made with the EOS 5d and my 50mm standard lens. I shot it hand-held on a ladder in RAW format. I then processed it in Canon's own DPP software and outputted it as a TIFF at 350 dpi.

That's me standing beside the EOS 5d enlargement

 This one was made with a Hasselblad

He's also made use of my images, although not on as big a scale elsewhere on the stand. There are fifteen enlargements of various sizes adorning the shelves which showcase the company's products.

The Ineltec exhibition runs from the 13th until the 16th of September 2011.

Thanks for reading.