A May Bug... The Melolontha species are beetles of the scarab family. From May until early to mid July these beasties take to the air every evening at dusk - sometimes in dozens, hundreds or even thousands - searching for mates. The buzzing of their wings is like the hum of high voltage power lines. Having mated, many times, the beetles die off, but not until they have laid eggs in the ground. The eggs hatch into larvae which spend years in development, usually between 20 cm and 1 m below the surface and feeding on plant roots. When they mature, the beetles surface and feed on leafy trees such as birch. When the beetles get tired, nearby amateur photographers set up their tripods and set nice long exposure times (1.8 seconds in this case) in order to catch as much detail as they can before the critter crawls off to die.
Friday, July 24, 2009
Saturday, June 27, 2009
Lednogora
The HDR thing can get a little crazy. It's addictive I think. This started off as a simple view across a lake with a few hazy reflections on the water but.... as you see, they're not hazy any more and the sky is terrifying! Still, I think it worked out quite well. :) My missus disagrees and says the sky is too dark. How am I to help it if it started raining seconds after the photos were taken??? Weather wise, in fact, we're having a miserable summer so far.
Tuesday, June 23, 2009
Galleon
Well, I've had another long break from this but I'm back. :)
I couldn't get my head round the whole HDR thing in photography. In case there's anyone reading this who still hasn't heard about it, HDR is High Dynamic Range imaging. The idea is that monitors and printers aren't able to reproduce a scene as it really appears - they work with a very low dynamic range. To capture more of a scene, it is necessary to shoot at least 3 images with different exposure settings and then merge them to make an HDR file. The problem is that your HDR looks rubbish on-screen and you can't print it. This is where I came unstuck. I got some program to sort it for me, but, unless you know what to do with it, it really doesn't help much.
Earlier this year my father bought me a book on the subject, for my birthday, he'd seen it on Amazon and decided I might like it. He didn't know how I'd been tearing my hair out with this. Anyhoo, the book explained the process of tone mapping, which is what you have to do with your HDR file so that you can view a representation of it on your monitor, or print a copy. It explains how to make an extremely realistic looking scene or how to make more surreal views. What you see here is one of my attempts at putting theory into practice.
The galleon pictured sails from Gdansk in Poland to .... Gdansk in Poland, for the amusement of tourists. Sometimes though, like the day I shot the source images for this picture, the sky looks suitably pirate-y.
I couldn't get my head round the whole HDR thing in photography. In case there's anyone reading this who still hasn't heard about it, HDR is High Dynamic Range imaging. The idea is that monitors and printers aren't able to reproduce a scene as it really appears - they work with a very low dynamic range. To capture more of a scene, it is necessary to shoot at least 3 images with different exposure settings and then merge them to make an HDR file. The problem is that your HDR looks rubbish on-screen and you can't print it. This is where I came unstuck. I got some program to sort it for me, but, unless you know what to do with it, it really doesn't help much.
Earlier this year my father bought me a book on the subject, for my birthday, he'd seen it on Amazon and decided I might like it. He didn't know how I'd been tearing my hair out with this. Anyhoo, the book explained the process of tone mapping, which is what you have to do with your HDR file so that you can view a representation of it on your monitor, or print a copy. It explains how to make an extremely realistic looking scene or how to make more surreal views. What you see here is one of my attempts at putting theory into practice.
The galleon pictured sails from Gdansk in Poland to .... Gdansk in Poland, for the amusement of tourists. Sometimes though, like the day I shot the source images for this picture, the sky looks suitably pirate-y.
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