Sherfield Photography Blog

It’s time for me to say goodbye to a good friend – my Canon EF 28-135mm f/3.5-5.6 IS USM AutoFocus Lens.  I’ve thoroughly enjoyed this lens and the images it has produced.  The focal length (zoom range) is great and the IS (Image Stabilizer) totally spoils you – once you’ve used it you’ll never go back!  The focal length is great for anyone looking for a lens that you can put on your camera for all kinds of things.  It’s the lens that has stayed on my camera 90% of hte time.  It’s great for travel photography, portraits, landscapes, and everything in between.  The IS helps reduce camera shake which is great for those with shakey hands, lower light situations, and shooting photos while zoomed in at 135mm.  Overall, it is possibly one of the best non-L (professional) series zoom lenses Canon has to offer.

With that said, I have finally decided to part ways with the lens since I’ve been able to replace it with the L-series (professional) version of the lens – the Canon EF 24-105mm f/4L IS USM lens.  So, if any of you are interested in adopting this great run-around and portrait lens, please shoot me an email at josh@sherfieldphotography.com.  The lens is in incredible condition with no optical defects.  The price is set at $250 (it currently sells on Amazon for $295 used and $410 new).  If given to a good home I will even throw in a free Canon EW78BII Lens Hood to shade the lens and help eliminate unwanted glare (a $20 value).

Canon EF 28-135mm f/3.5-5.6 IS USM Lens

Also for sale is my Canon EF 50mm f/1.8 II AutoFocus Lens.  This lens is possibly the greatest bang-for-your-buck lens and a great way to introduce you to the world of prime lenses (non-zoom lenses).  Prime lenses are great because they force you to interact with your environment and subjects more than with zooms.  Portraits, for example, often have more emotion and personality when shot with prime lenses.  They also offer wider-apertures which do two things – allow more light in the camera and create a shallower depth of field.  More light means faster shutter speeds in low-light situations which is why these lenses are often referred to as “fast glass.”  Shallower depth of field means that you can throw the background and/or foreground out of focus more, creating a beatiful bokeh that is very appealing in photographs, especially portraits.  The lens is in incredible like-new condition with no defects.  The price for this lens is set at $50 (it currently sells on Amazon for $80 used and $87 new).  If any of you are interested in adopting this great prime lens, please shoot me an email at josh@sherfieldphotography.com.

Canon EF 50mm f/1.8 II Lens

The Complete Set - Both Lenses and Hood for 28-135mm Lens

So I’ve seen a lot of HDR photos around the internet for quite a while, but never really felt like I had a reason to care enough to try it myself.  Well, that changed today.  That’s right, I made my first attempt at HDR photography…

My First HDRI

What is HDR Photography, HDRI, etc?

For those that aren’t familiar with the term, let me try to explain it briefly.  The human eye has the ability to see  much more dynamic range than any camera – the eye can take in an image with much more variation in bright and dark areas than any camera sensor.  HDR or HDRI (High Dynamic Range Imaging) is the process of taking multiple exposures of the same subject and merging them into a single image so that the best aspects of each original exposure can be portrayed in the final image.  A mouthful I know and not exactly the most technical description but hopefully it kind of makes sense.

The basic process involves taking 3 or more pictures of the same subject, each with a different exposure value.  An example would be to take one darker exposure to capture a bright sky and clouds, one normally exposed image to capture the main subject, and one brighter exposure to capture more detail in the shadows.  While my example only involves 3 images, you can have as many as you like (typically 3, 5, 7, or 9).

After taking your exposures you would then import them into some sort of software capable of processing HDR images such as Adobe Photoshop CS4.  Using the software, you would merge the images into a single 32-bit image file.  To make this image usable on a monitor or printer, we have to convert this into an 8-bit image file such as JPEG.  During this conversion you would also make some adjustments to how the software converts the different areas in the tonal range to the smaller 8-bit range.  I hope I’m not tripping over myself and losing people here.

The final result leaves you with an image that should have more detail and light in areas that would typically get clipped and under- or over-exposed by a camera sensor.  Some do not like this process as the resulting images can sometimes look unnatural or magical, but I think it can have a role in photography.  This isn’t really my thing and I tend to agree with those that think the images look too fake, so I’ll probably only do this on rare occasion.

My Process

So now that I’ve bored you with my lame attempt to explain the overall technique and goal of HDRI, here’s the process I used to do my first HDR merge.

1.  I took 3 exposures of a parking garage (boring subject to photograph but it was for work).  One at 0ev Exposure Bias, one at -2ev, and one at +2ev.  Since I was hand-holding my camera while taking the photos I put my camera on burst mode and set the AEB (Auto Exposure Bracketing) settings to give me the desired exposure biases.

2.  I then imported the photos into Adobe Photoshop CS4.  Open PS (Photoshop) and click File > Automate > Merge to HDR.  Select your source files in the dialog box and click OK.  Special Note: If you took the photos without a tripod then you’ll probably want to check the option to Attempt to Automatically Align Source Images.  If you used a tripod then uncheck the option.

3.  You will then be presented with a preview of your image and a slider to adjust the White Point.  Don’t worry, this isn’t what your image will look like.  I didn’t experiment too much with the White Point and just clicked OK.

4.  After PS is done creating your 32-bit HDR image, you will need to convert it to either 16 or 8-bit.  I converted to 16-bit because I wanted to be able to save a copy of my image at 16-bit in case I later wanted to make some adjustments.  Click Image > Mode > 16 bits/channel.

5.  PS will then give you a dialog box with a drop-down at the top with four options in it: Exposure & Gamma, Highlight Compression, Equalize Compression, and Local Adaption.  The 2nd and 3rd options do not let you change anything.  The 4th option is where I’ll focus.  After selecting Local Adaption from the drop-down, you’ll want to click the arrow at the bottom to reveal the Toning Curve and Histogram.

6.  If you’re not familiar with the concept of curves then this may be a little difficult to follow.  Now you’ll want to bring in the lowlight or blackpoint in to where it’s close to the beginning of the histogram.  Do the same for the highlights.  After that, it’s a matter of the look you’re going for.  Click on the curve line to add points and drag the points you add to give you a contrast curve that’s appealing to you and exposing the various tones to reveal the detail you’re after.  When you’re satisfied, click OK.

7.  At this point I made a few more adjustments to my image such as Vibrancy (Image > Adjustments > Vibrance), Curves (Image > Adjustments > Curves), and Lens Correction (Filter > Distort > Lens Correction).  I specifically performed a few Lens Correction adjustments to fix a little cyan fringe from my wide-angle lens and Vertical Perspective to imitate the effect of using a Tilt-Shift Lens to fix the problem of converging verticals.

8.  When I was satisfied, I did my final conversion to 8-bit (Image > Mode > 8 bits/channel) so that I could save the image as a JPEG (File > Save As > select JPEG from the Format drop-down).

That’s it!

In case you’re wondering, here are the 3 photos I started with…

0ev (24mm, f/9, 1/400, ISO 800)

-2ev (24mm, f/9, 1/1600, ISO 800)

+2ev (24mm, f/9, 1/100, ISO 800)

After unboxing my Canon EOS 5D Mark II, I quickly realized that my 2GB and 1GB CF cards weren’t going to cut it. They were fine shooting RAW with an 8MP body, but shooting 14-bit 21MP RAW files means 25-26MB per exposure! Not only was capacity an issue but write performance was too, especially when shooting bursts of multiple photos.

So, I decided it was time to invest in some new media. I’ve used various brands of CF (compact flash) cards in the past and have always preferred my Lexar Professional Series CF cards. So, after researching different brands, speeds, and sizes, I am now very happy with the newest inhabitants of my camera bag – a Lexar 16GB Professional Series UDMA Compact Flash 300x Cardand a Lexar 8GB Professional Series UDMA Compact Flash 300x Card. Both cards utilize the latest in UDMA (Ultra DMA) technology boasting sustained write speeds of 45 MB/sec – very helpful when shooting 3.9 fps at 21MP (approx. 101MB/sec when shooting RAW). I am happy to report that these cards live up to their claims and I am totally amazed at how quick they are. I can shoot full res. RAW files and 1080p HD video without worrying about my media not being able to keep up and me missing a shot because of it.

If you’re in the market for some new CF cards for your camera (especially if you have a new UDMA-enabled DSLR), I would highly recommend these cards. They’re definitely worth the extra investment!

Here are a few shots taken with my new camera and lens (Canon EOS 5D Mark IIwith a Canon EF 24-105mm f/4 L IS USM Lens) on my snowshoeing adventure with a couple of the guys.  Unfortunately I haven’t had a chance to really get out with the new camera so this is kind of its maiden voyage.  So far I’m really impressed with the camera – good build, image quality, and high-ISO performance/quality.  The lens is incredible as well – great focusing speed, contrast, sharpness, focal length range (24-105mm is a great range for a walk-around lens), and IS (Image Stabilizer) is a huge plus.  Hopefully I’ll be able to get some real portraits done with the 5D MII soon so I can really experience all that the new camera has to offer.