Month: May 2011

Categories
Photography Photography - Black & White Photography - Canon 5D Mark II Stanford

Another Look at the Pizza Guy

IMG_5348

While photowalking Stanford a few weeks ago with Doug Kaye, we happened across this guy eating pizza out in the courtyard in front of the fountain in the Old Union. It seemed like such a classic “street shot”. It was shot with my Canon 5D Mark II using the Canon 24-105mm f/4 IS lens.

The first version I did came out pretty flat and dull – so I thought I’d try it again and use Nik’s Silver Efex 2 to perform the black and white conversion. I’m much happier with this result – although I’d still very much a novice at using Silver Efex!

What do you think? Better? Leave a comment for me below.

Categories
Photography Photography - Black & White Photography - Canon PowerShot S95 Stanford

Out Shooting Circles at Stanford

Stanford Circles by Scott Loftesness

While out walking at Stanford yesterday afternoon, Lily and I came across this sunken oak tree planting – with these beautiful steps tiered down to the old oak’s ground level. The steps had some great light and shadows – in the wonderfully diffuse light of a mostly cloudy day.

My late friend Chris Gulker first turned me on to these kinds of scenes. Just walking with him was an experience in seeing things – that I would never have seen. Chris paid special attention to the combination of lights and shadows that most of us miss. He just saw the world differently. A favorite example is the stairstep railings shot at Cantor – where Chris saw shadows from the railings I never would have seen. Learning to see a bit through his eyes was such a treat.

Chris would have loved these steps down to the heritage Oak. I know we would have lingered for a while looking at these lights and shadows – just as Lily and I did.

This image was shot with my Canon PowerShot S95 and post-processed using Nik’s Silver Efex Pro 2.

Hope you like these steps too!

Categories
Compact HDR HDR Photography Photography Photography - Canon PowerShot S95 Stanford

Planes at Stanford – The David Packard EE Building

David Packard Electrical Engineering Building at Stanford University (HDR) by Scott Loftesness

Perhaps my tricky title fooled you? No, I’m not thinking of airplanes – but of flat surfaces – those kinds of planes.

We had some interesting weather and skies in the San Francisco area this afternoon – so I headed over for a walk around the north side of the Stanford University campus – and came upon this scene. It’s the David Packard Electrical Engineering building – shot as a single image RAW using my little Canon PowerShot S95 and post-processed using PhotoMatix Pro. This is a more realistic HDR – where the effects are more subtle and photorealistic.

The sun was behind the clouds over to the left side of the image – so there were no dark contrasty shadows but, instead, some beautiful light. When I look at this image, it flips back and forth around the centerline in my mind – fascinating effect! Do you see that too? Click here to see a larger version on a black background.

Hope you like it! If you do, let me know in the comments!

By the way, this image makes an incredible desktop image for your Mac – use the “Stretch to Fill Screen” setting to widen it out – beautiful!

Categories
Events HDR Photography Maker Faire Photography Photography - Canon PowerShot S95

Single RAW, Double Tone Mapping HDR Photography with the Canon PowerShot S95

Tesla-4-Final-BlurBlend+TopazAdjust-1024px

Last weekend, Doug Kaye and I attended Maker Faire Bay Area 2011 and had a blast shooting lots of images. I had both my “big” camera (Canon EOS 5D Mark II) and my “little” camera (Canon PowerShot S95) – shooting in RAW on both.

The image above is one from my little S95 – of a Tesla Coil machine (or some such – no quite sure what to call it!) taken outdoors at the Faire. It was a single image RAW file. To post-process the image, I went through three additional steps – tone mapping, double tone mapping, and then final adjustments/tweaks in PhotoShop.

You can follow each of the steps by viewing each of the four images in this set on Flickr and reading the description where I describe each step.

Hope you find it interesting!

Categories
Events Maker Faire Photography Photography - Canon 5D Mark II Photography - Canon PowerShot S95

Maker Faire Bay Area 2011

Maker Faire Bay Area 2011

Doug Kaye and I had a great time Sunday at Maker Faire Bay Area 2011. This event provides photographers like us with endless opportunities to explore – and we did just that for the second year in a row. Thanks again to Doug for inviting me along.

I was shooting primarily with my Canon 5D Mark II and the EF 70-200mm f/2.8L IS lens. Near the end of my shoot, I switched to my newest lens, the Canon EF 135mm f/2 IS lens – an amazing portrait lens. Shooting both of these lenses “wide open”, they do a great job of blurring the background and making the photos interesting.

My second camera (as always!) was my trusty Canon PowerShot S95. Sometimes I wonder why I bother to bring along the “big camera” when I review what I can do with the S95! It’s an amazing little package!

As usual, I was shooting RAW on both cameras – so I’ve got some great RAW material for single image HDR post-processing when time permits.

Above is a matrix of my Flickr photos from today’s Maker Faire. These shots were quickly post-processed in Lightroom 3 before uploading to Flickr. Lightroom has proven to be a great tool for quickly doing this kind of post-processing and delivering the most important images.

Hope you enjoy them!

Categories
Events Maker Faire Photography San Francisco/California

All Aboard for Maker Faire Bay Area 2011!

We're Watching!

Doug Kaye and I are heading for Maker Faire Bay Area – the 2011 edition – this morning in San Mateo.

This is our second visit, both of us having been introduced to the Faire last year after Doug invited me to go along! It’s an amazing collection of things, exhibits, participatory exercises – you name it – providing great fun for photographers!

Here are some of Doug’s photos and my photos from last year’s event.

Categories
France Living Photography Travel

On the Beach at Cannes

Cannes Beach

For some reason, this particular photo of mine (from a wonderful trip to France in the summer of 2006) has been having an unusual number of views over the last few days on Flickr. Curious.

It was taken using my old Canon PowerShot S500 on a bright afternoon in July on the beach at Cannes – with hazy sunlight filtering down.

I love the colors in this shot – reminds me of an old postcard! Absolutely nothing has been done in terms of post-processing to this image! Hope you enjoy it too!

Categories
HDR Photography Photography Photography - Black & White Photography - Canon PowerShot S95 Stanford

The Thinker in the Rodin Sculpture Garden

The Thinker - Gates of Hell - Rodin Sculpture Garden - Stanford University

Up top in Rodin’s Gates of Hell sculpture sits the Thinker – pondering everything. The Gates is an amazing sculpture and beautifully displayed outdoors at Stanford’s Cantor Art Center.

This image was taken with my little Canon PowerShot S95. It was converted from original RAW using Lightroom 3 followed by a black and white conversion performed using Nik’s Silver Efex Pro 2.

I like the way it turned out – hope you do too!

Categories
Australia HDR Photography Photography Photography - Canon PowerShot S95

Luna Park in Sydney

Luna Park - Sydney, Australia (HDR)

You can’t help but smile at this entrance to Luna Park in Sydney Australia. This shot was taken with my little Canon PowerShot S95 while we were on the ferry heading over to National Maritime Museum in Darling Harbor. It’s hard to believe that it’s almost two months ago that we were in Sydney!

I post-processed this as a single image HDR – focusing it on the smiley face in the center and desaturating the edges. Hope you enjoy this photo!

For more of my Sydney photos, see this Flickr group.

Categories
HDR Photography Photography San Francisco/California

About the San Francisco Bay HDR Group

Golden Gate Bridge (Canon PowerShot S90 HDR)

Last August, we started the San Francisco Bay HDR group on Flickr – dedicated to HDR (High Dynamic Range) photography of the San Francisco Bay Area. The group has kind of been off in a corner, but it’s already got some great examples of HDR images of San Francisco and points nearby.

Be sure to check it out – and, if you’d like, join and contribute your San Francisco Bay HDR shots to the group as well!

The photo above, as it turns out, has been my most viewed HDR photo on Flickr. It was taken on the top of Fort Point using my little Canon PowerShot S90. The light that afternoon was incredible with some interesting shadows and beautiful clouds along the horizon. Click here to see a lightbox version. I particularly enjoyed the sign “Danger – stay off walls” as that couple was sitting right up there! Hope you enjoy it too!