Shots from the Fair tonight

vipgraphx · Apr 25, 2012

I took the kids to the fair tonight. Night time HDR to me is very difficult and I had to use a combination of techniques. I used fusion along with tonemapping. I think it was especially hard as I did not have my tripod with me so these were all hand held and I could only get 3-5 bursts. 3 would be -1,0,+1 and 5 would be -2,-1,0,+1,+2. I think I could have had an easier time processing these had I had my tripod and 7-9 shots. Still need to learn more about taking night HDR in environments like this.

Out of all the photos I had I chose these for critique. keep in mind I was at the fair and had to position my self where I could when I could. People walk by or bump you so I could not really get exactly what I wanted. However I look at this a stepping stone to build off of.

game by VIPGraphX, on Flickr

spin ride by VIPGraphX, on Flickr

alien ship by VIPGraphX, on Flickr

clown by VIPGraphX, on Flickr

spin ride by VIPGraphX, on Flickr

spooky house by VIPGraphX, on Flickr

zion_diego by VIPGraphX, on Flickr

oldcar by VIPGraphX, on Flickr

had to get the corn dog shot in....this is a big reason I hit the fair ..... Greasy fatty food one time a year in one location... :drool:

corndogs by VIPGraphX, on Flickr

Bynx · Apr 25, 2012

All things considered you did fine. The first one could use some deghosting. Select the boy on the left and the people walking on the right.

Joel_W · Apr 25, 2012

Basically, I really like your set. You sure must have steady hands to bracket hand held and have your pictures come out this sharp. In a pictures the bright lights still seem somewhat blown out, which I'm assuming is one of the main reasons why you used HDR Imaging. Love the beat up old car, and of course the corn dog stand. The Carousel shot came out fantastic.

slackercruster · Apr 25, 2012

Fabulous!!

Would hang up some of them...if I had some free wallspace.

Keep up the great work!

(But how would you get all those multi shots with people moving around??)

vipgraphx · Apr 25, 2012

Bynx said:
All things considered you did fine. The first one could use some deghosting. Select the boy on the left and the people walking on the right.

You are right. That was my last one i processed and I over looked it. Thanks for pointing it out.

Joel_W said:
Basically, I really like your set. You sure must have steady hands to bracket hand held and have your pictures come out this sharp. In a pictures the bright lights still seem somewhat blown out, which I'm assuming is one of the main reasons why you used HDR Imaging. Love the beat up old car, and of course the corn dog stand. The Carousel shot came out fantastic.

Joel- The D700 can shoot 8fps. I set the ISO between 800-1600 and I had used F2.8-4.5 depending on conditions. This helped me to keep a fast burst. I also used 3-5 exposures depending on lighting. This is why the photos had some blown out highlights because I had to adjust the settings to be able to do hand held shots. If I had a tripod I would have changed down to ISO 200 and F8-11 and the the shutter would have stayed open longer. I would have used 7-9 frames so I could get rid of the highlights...

slackercruster said:
Fabulous!!

Would hang up some of them...if I had some free wallspace.

Keep up the great work!

(But how would you get all those multi shots with people moving around??)

One is the speed that the camera was able to shoot in, second is the de-ghosting tool in photomatix and three when that fails masking in the original exposures to get rid of it.

Thanks...

Majeed Badizadegan · Apr 25, 2012

Taking into account these were handheld, they came out pretty nice.

A couple global suggestions for the set. If at all possible, try to take more shots in golden hour or blue hour. These are in the dead of the night dark skies. The negative space works in Alien ship, but it takes away in spooky house.

vipgraphx said:
game by VIPGraphX, on Flickr

Great color, good lines, and good composition. Maybe a global exposure, fill light or gamma bump, because it's coming in a bit a dark.

spin ride by VIPGraphX, on Flickr

I like the action here. Handheld this is really tough, I don't think the shutter was quite long enough but still impressive for a handheld shot. I'd clone out distractions on the left and right side of the frame to finalize this image.

alien ship by VIPGraphX, on Flickr

Really nice colors and nice capture. A couple steps backward and you may have got the entire sign and the left part of the ride sign which is cut off in the image.

clown by VIPGraphX, on Flickr

Probably the weakest of the set. A throway. The main subject is OOF, there are lighting issues globally, and the composition leaves much to be desired.

spin ride by VIPGraphX, on Flickr

Nice shot, a more compelling image if we had some nice blue hour sky to fill in the top part of the frame.

spooky house by VIPGraphX, on Flickr

This picture seems to be about the ride, and not necessarily the walkway in front of it. A nicer composition would be to get in front of this ride and have the sign and colors as the main subject/ focal point of the image. I think the negative space and the left part of the frame don't really add much. The juicy details are in the ride.

zion_diego by VIPGraphX, on Flickr

global lighting issues, basically a family snapshot with HDR treatment. Not a ton of interesting things going on here from an outsider perspective.

oldcar by VIPGraphX, on Flickr

I like this shot. I might consider cropping in from the top and right. Or at least cloning out the hot spot in the upper right frame.
had to get the corn dog shot in....this is a big reason I hit the fair ..... Greasy fatty food one time a year in one location...

corndogs by VIPGraphX, on Flickr

Solid shot all around. Only possible improvement I could see would be getting directly in front of your subject, and not shooting from an angle. You caught the guy handing out a dog which is a nice plus too, gives the image some life.

vipgraphx · Apr 25, 2012

thanks for your suggestions. We did not get to the fair until after dark and keep in mind the crouds. I did my best given the circumstances. I really would have liked to have been there by myself with a tripod, right at sunset with some nice clouds in the sky but that is just not the case here. I think everything you said is valid and useful. I almost did not bring my camera with me because I knew taking photos would be hard to do with so much traffic. Some of these were taken at the end of our time there as it died down.

I have seen many pictures of folks taking HDR at the fair and honestly I still think I have a ways to go. I am not sure if some of those HDR's are just single tonemapped images or not..but I have a look I am going for and I think I fell short..

Its hard because you are there for the kids so many of my shots were while I was waiting for them to get off the rides....

Cheers

Bynx · Apr 25, 2012

You are opening my eyes to more shooting with moving people in it such as a situation like this. Thanks.

killbill · Apr 25, 2012

Incredible sharpness

vipgraphx · Apr 25, 2012

Bynx said:
You are opening my eyes to more shooting with moving people in it such as a situation like this. Thanks.

Thanks Bynx, its a nice feeling to know that I have opened your eyes to another photo situation. I know you have more experience than I do so glad I made some impact on my time here. I am a people person and love to sit and watch people. I think that is why I have no problem shooting in situations like this because it captures actual life not something that is picture perfect, life is not picture perfect right?

killbill said:
Incredible sharpness

Thanks.. I am using the nikon 14-24 2.8 and It really did its job last night.

here are a few more I decided to process and post.

zombie2 by VIPGraphX, on Flickr

zombie by VIPGraphX, on Flickr

snokones by VIPGraphX, on Flickr

moscow circus by VIPGraphX, on Flickr

Skhigh · Apr 25, 2012

Im not usually a big fan of the HDR shots, the ghost effect on a lot of photos makes them look fake..but in your case I love them! I should add, I dont know anything about HDR photos or the process of creating them...so I just think your shots look pretty.

vipgraphx · Apr 25, 2012

Thanks Melissa -

killbill · Apr 25, 2012

I am now craving a sno-kone......:er:

vipgraphx · Apr 25, 2012

Last two of the set.

I know its tilted to the left but if I try to correct it I will loose the bull horns..I can live with it being a crooked.

bull skull by VIPGraphX, on Flickr

This was the very last shot of the night.

walkway by VIPGraphX, on Flickr

All in all I think I learned more about night photography and HDR through out the day as I processed photos. I realized what sliders helped eliminating noise in the black area ( not a total cure but helped it out more)

I look forward to giving it another attempt but I will be more.

As always thanks for looking and thanks for the feed back!

18.percent.gary · Apr 25, 2012

I'm with Melissa on this one...

Normally I don't like "over-processed" HDR but these just seem to work. Knowing when to use a specific technique (such as HDR, B&W, etc) is a challenge but this seems to have been the perfect situation. I'm going to try some similar shots tonight... thanks for the inspiration.

The Corn Dog shot is flat-out fantastic! Well done Mate.