High Dynamic Range Digital Photos: Eureka Nevada

Eureka Nevada provided some great oportunities to shoot some High Dynamic Range Photos.

The ride to Eureka was brutal. What’s the deal with 40 to 50 MPH head and cross winds? Riding in wind usually isn’t that bad but, when the wind is blowing dust clouds that cut your vision to less than 100 yards it can be brutal. In fact when we finally made it to Eureka a guy told us that he saw a Honda Goldwing get blown over and the rider almost got ran over by a motor home.

So much for the ride, let’s get back to photography. The small towns along highway 50 are very unique and interesting. This area was settled primarily by miners and is sparsley populated. Eureka however has done some nice restoration and reminds me of Virginia City, only without the crowds. The Texture and tones of the store fronts are interesting and colorful. Having the opportunity to photograph this little town made the ride worth while. Before dinner we rode the streets looking for interesting lighting and composition. After finding what I was looking for,I took a few digital photographs to process and create some High Dynamic Range Images. I hope you enjoy them as much as I did creating them.

Jackson-Hotel

Eureka-Main-Street

Eureka-Main-Street-2

Eureka-Main-Street-3

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High Dynamic Range Digital Photographs: Natural Bridge National Park, Utah

It’s time to leave Blanding and head west through Southern Utah. Our first stop will be “Natural Bridge National Park“. Natural Bridge is a very unique landscape. It is rugged and unforgiving. It consists of 3 different natural bridges carved from sandstone. If you want a close up view you’ll need to do some hiking. Experiencing 100 degee weather, we chose not to view the first two bridges close up. The third bridge, “Kachina” is only about a half mile hike and we dicided it was worth the effort.

I decided to take a different approach to photographing this environment and took a more abstract view of this unusual landscape. This is a shot of the first bridge, “Owachomo”. I took this photograph from the upper view point. I decided to focus on the unusual lines and texture of the sandstone as apposed to taking a documentary style shot of the bridge itself.

Owachomo Natural Bridge

This second photograph is of the third bridge “Kachina”. Again I opted to do something a little unusual and made a somewhat abstract High Dynamic Range Image. I actually processed this photograph using Photomatix and the tone mapping detail enhancer. I then ran it a second time, through the same process, which multiplied the effect, giving it it’s abstract appearance. Like it or love it, it is different and has somewhat of a painterly feel to it.

Kachina Natural Bridge

From here we headed through what I like to call “NO MANS LAND” on our way to our next nights stop in Hanksville Utah. On the way we stopped to take a few more shots of this incredible landscape. Seeing this country from a motor cycle is an awesome experience. I would recommend traveling this country to anyone who is interested in digital photography. It is diverse and breathtaking. I found myself wanting to stop and take photographs constantly, but couldn’t because of the lack of safe turnouts and parking.

I recently had a discussion about shooting for High Dynamic Range photographs and was asked, “Do you need to take HDR in the early morning and late afternoon light?” These HDR images were taken at mid day in 100 degree weather. I’ll let the photographs speak for themselves and you can be the judge.

The first image, in this series of High Dynamic Range Images, is a great example of this rugged landscape. I originally shot this photograph as a panoramic but decided to crop to this format to put more emphasis on the depth and texture of the canyon.

No Mans Land

This image was taken after taking just a couple of steps to my right. After 30 years as a Professional Photographer I’m still amazed by the different composition, that can be created, by slightly changing your camera angle.

No-Man's Land-2

Here is another example of the variety of photographs that can be taken by simply changing the focal length of your lens or camera angle.

No-Man's Land-3No Man's Land-4

No Man's Land-4

That’s it for this post. Tomorrow we head back to Nevada to explore some photography opportunities in Eureka. I invite you to comment on my posts and share your thoughts.

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HDR Photographs, Page Arizona And Monument Valley

Lake Powell-Page Arizona

Lake Powell-2Lake Powell-3

Lake Powell

As you can see, the lighting in the late afternoon light was quite contrasty. Either the highlites or the shadows would have suffered a loss of detail when shooting a single exposure. Thi s is a good example of the benefit of shooting High Dynamic Range Exposures.  Shooting HDR gives you the ability to capture images that you would otherwise miss and enables you to take a good quality photograph under less than perfect lighting situations.

The next morning we decided to back track and ride through Monument Valley on our way to Mexican Hat, and then onto Blanding Utah, to spend the night.

Monument Valley-1

Monument Vally-Close Up

Mexican Hat-Canyon

We decided to take a little traveled route from Mexican Hat to Blanding Utah and the trip provided some interesting challenges. To climb to the top of a plateau we encountered about 8 miles, of single lane, gravel road, loaded with hair pin turns. On the way we stopped and shot a couple of images just for memories sake.

Mexican Hat-Hair Pin Turns

As you can see, I wouln’t recommend this route for an inexperienced rider because the road is actually quite challenging and in places very dangerous. I shot the majority of these photographs to give examples of creating composition and depth of field by using a lens aperture of f/11 to f/16 and a wider focal length lens. By including an interesting forground and some leading lines in your pictorials your viewer has the sense of actually standing where you were when the photograph was taken. I personally feel this is more effective than using a telephoto lens, when taking pictorial photographs.

As we approached our final destination for the night I took a few shots of Roger as we rode into Blanding. I used my Canon EOS 5D and a 17mm lense to take these while riding side by side at about 50 mph.

Roger "On The Road"

A Digital Photographers Paradise, The Great Southwest..More HDR Images To Come.

We hear the weather is hot in the Southwestern United States and we are on our way. Wyoming is BIG, beautiful and a great place to ride but, for the first time in many years we’ve had some pretty bad weather. We haven’t had many good phototography oportunities so we are headed for the Southwest and some sunshine.

Heading south from Riverton Wyoming to Colorado is a fantastic ride. For almost the entire ride you are traveling on a high plateau which is 6,500 to 8,000 feet in elevation. The air is crisp and clean and the roads are great. The traffic is very light and you can really cover some ground. We rode pretty steady but, before leaving Wyoming we stopped long enough to take a quick photograph of this beautiful landscape. This jpeg image is a shot looking back to the Northeast in the morning light. I took a single image and we were on the road again. The photo is of a large government managed, wildlife, and big game area. This is the home to a very large elk population.

The jpeg image was taken with my Canon EOS 5D. Shot with a 24mm lens at f/16 for a good depth of field, you can really get a feeling for how big and breath taking this beautiful country is.

Leaving Wyoming

From here we busted right through Colorado and made it to Cortez in Southwestern Colorado and spent the night. We didn’t stop for photographs because we were just happy to have some good riding weather. We made the most of the warm weather and really covered some ground. Tomorrow we will ride into Northern Arizona. It should be a busy day and provide some great opportunities to capture some High Dynamic Range Photographs. This country has a great landscape and the lighting should be great for shooting HDR. Trust me your eyes are in for a treat. See you in a few days,  Terry

PS: Roger just called and we are heading back on the road tomorrow to ride through Eastern Oregon and Hells Canyon on the Snake River. So I guess I’ll be off line for about 5 or 6 days.

Here is quick look at shot taken near Kayenta Arizona… Shot about one o’clock and it was already over 100 degrees.

Kayenta-Az.

HDR Images In The Badlands of South Dakota

We’ve been on the road for 3 days and we’ve decided to take a previously ridden route from Cody Wyoming over the pass to Sheridan and then on to Sturgis. It is a great scenic route and I was looking forward to getting some nice digital images and maybe a few High Dynamic Range photographs. Little did we know that the route we were about to take was closed due to a rock slide over the pass.

What the hell is going on? We have had 100 degree heat, lightning, rain, freezing rain and it’s about to get worse. About an hour out of Cody we started to hit road construction and the next thing we new we came apon a road sign saying the road was closed one mile ahead do to a rock slide. Not that I’m a complainer but it would have been nice if they would have put the sign up 3 miles back at the junction, but what the heck, we just back tracked and headed to our alternate route, Worland Wyoming.

From Worland we headed over the pass and hit 20 more miles of road construction and one hell of a rain storm. The trip is starting to get interesting and one we’ll not soon forget. After all that’s why we do this, it’s all about the adventure. To our surprise, we made it through the day with all our body parts and bikes intact. We finally landed in Buffalo Wyoming to spend the night without touching my camera or taking a single image.

The next morning we had good weather and a relaxing ride into Spearfish South Dakota where we checked into our motel and headed to our favorite watering hole, the Full Throttle Saloon in Sturgis. It is only Wednesday and things don’t start happening until around Friday or Saturday so things were a little quiet and relaxing. I took a quick shot of the bar to document the trip. This place will have over 10 thousand bikers raising hell here in a couple of days, but we’ll have to miss the party because we’ll probably be in Colorado or Utah buy then.

Full Throttle Saloon

We decided to head out and ride the Badlands of South Dakota the next morning. This place is very different. It is comprised of just dirt and mud, you will have to look hard to find any sign of a rock anywhere. I decided to take a few HDR images just to document the trip and here is what I came up with.

Badlands-1

Badlands-2

Badlands-3

Just outside the Badlands Park we stopped at a cool little Biker Bar. Roger and I stopped for a quick beer and I took this shot. Not great but, what the heck, it’s still a great memory of an adventure that both of us will remember for the rest of our lives.

Badlands Biker Bar

Sturgis Bike Rally Trip, Shooting High Dynamic Range Photographs

Sturgis Bike Rally Trip, Shooting High Dynamic Range Photographs:

Well day 2 of our our annual Sturgis Bike Trip was as expected. We blew through Idaho and made it to our second nights destination , Alpine Wyoming. Idaho was hotter than heck. The only time we stopped was for fuel and water. We were on the freeway all day and even at 75 to 85 mph the wind didn’t cool us off much with the 100 plus degree temperatures. No photographs were taken, but we did cover about 500 miles.

Alpine Wyoming is about 40 miles south of Jackson Wyoming. Alpine is a great place to eat, drink, and a great place to start day three of our trip. We stopped on our way out of Jackson and I took a couple of quick shots of the Grand Tetons. I shot these to give an example of the difference between a normally exposed file and an HDR (high dynamic range) photograph. These were taken just prior to leaving the Tetons National Park at the south entrance to Yellowstone.

Normal Exposure: This shot was taken with average meter reading using aperture priority mode at f/16 and ISO @ 100. Shutter speed at 1/60 of a second.

High Dynamic Range Photograph: The initial exposure of this HDR image was taken with the same exposure settings as the image above.  An an additional exposure was taken at plus 1 1/2 stops for increased detail in the shadow area. The third exposure was taken at a minus 1 1/2 stops to capture more details in the highlights. The three exposures were then blended together using Photomatix software. Here is the resulting image.

The weather began to take a turn for the worse as we crossed the mountains and headed towards Dubois Wyoming and the Wind River area. We did stop long enough to capture the following image before we hit the worst of the bad weather.

After I took these exposures we hit some very severe weather. You can see the clouds coming in from a massive cold front which came out of Canada. The rest of the day we rode through wind, lightning, and a lot of rain, on route to our next scheduled stop, Cody Wyoming. We had planned to ride Bear Tooth Pass but it was closed due to snow that day! Bummer!

Normal Exposure: Taken with a Canon EOS 5D. Settings were at: aperture priority, f/11 and a 60th of a second shutter speed. ISO was set @ 100

This High Dynamic Range Image was created with the same process as the proceeding HDR using Photomatix’s HDR software and the detail image enhancement setting.

As you can see, there is a strong weather front coming in from the north,  we did get our butts soaked later in the day.

Stay tuned for our next installment of,  Roger and Terry’s 15 day road trip to Sturgis, and other cool places to travel in the Great Western US.By the way if you want to learn more about how to shoot digital photographs, or if you would like to give a nice gift to an aspiring photographer, check out my course on

 “Mastering Digital Photography Made Easy”. You can pick up a free sample here.

Till next time, Stay focused, Terry