I spent Thursday thru Sunday deer hunting and camping at Medicine Creek Lake near Cambridge, Nebraska. This is an annual trip with my father, brothers, and a few family friends. It’s a therapeutic experience, and I usually come home feeling recharged and ready to tackle the second half of the Fall semester. This year was no different, and I got a number of great photos along the way!
Little House on the Prairie
The only photos I have to share are of a this small, abandoned old house right off Lake Road. I tried to take some photos of the house around sunset on Friday night, but it just didn’t do the building justice. I returned on Sunday morning right before sunset, and I believe the results were spectacular.
This is my favorite panorama from the weekend. I really like the shape and color of the clouds directly above the house. The angle of this shot is just so good!
This panorama isn’t quite as good, I don’t really like the dip on the right hand side and the sunset doesn’t quite dominate the photos as much as I’d like. It is still a really cool picture.
HDR
One new technique I tried this weekend is that of HDR. In HDR imaging multiple images taken at different exposures are all combined into one image. This allows for more detail than any one exposure can take. For example, I took these three photos from the same position at different exposures.
Clearly, none out of these 3 photos stands out as particularly great. However, when combined using special software (I used HDRSoft Photomatix Pro) the following image is created.
This image is clearly enhanced, and I bumped the saturation and contrast up, but the small details missing from each of the three individual images really add up to a great composite.