Finally some Christmas lights!! The Carson house has been haunting my photographic dreams ever since they put the lights up on it. Problem is, the only free time I have had to shoot it has been while it was raining and my camera is not exactly waterproof... Well, the rain finally cleared up a few nights ago (at least for the night) and I saw the lights on my way home over the Samoa bridge & jumped at the opportunity.
I have been reading up on HDR and looking at examples online for quite some time & thought that the Carson Mansion would provide the perfect subject for an HDR photo, especially with the Christmas lights all strung up. So I grabbed my tripod out of the car, and my cross-screen filter (makes lights have four points) just for fun, and set up everything from 2-3 different locations in front of the house and to the side of it. I used my Exposure bracketing feature on the camera taking three pictures each time I pressed the shutter button (the first at my set exposure, the second a stop below, and the third a stop above) and planned to combine them later in Photoshop using the automate HDR feature. Below are each of the three images before editing:
I was surprised at how easy it was! However what was not easy was trying to get the picture to look as close to real life as possible. I got close enough to make me happy for my first attempt, but I might try coming back and doing it over again after I get a bit more familiar with the ins and outs of the feature. Personally, I think it looks a little Tron-ish but I did watch the new movie the day before I took the photo's so I'm sure that didn't help! By the way, GREAT movie- I really enjoyed the first one but the second was even better! Back to business- Below are the combined photos, which were then edited in the HDR feature of Photoshop:
I used the corss-screen filter for a few shots before I noticed that the four-points it was making around the lights were much larger and pronounced than I wanted. So I remembered my focus-stacking technique and used it here. I took one pic of the house with the cross-screen filter:
and one without the cross-screen filter:
and then combined them as partially transparent layers in Photoshop. By making them transparent layers I could control the power of the four-points coming off the lights.
Location: Carson House Mansion-- at the foot of M Street in Eureka, CA
Date/Time: 12/ /10
Subject(s): Long exposure, christmas lights, HDR, architecture
Notes: some photos used a cross-screen filter, others no filter, all taken with tripod and long shutter speeds
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