Here are the few HDR pictures I chose out of the 105 I took that night. Common theme, different light, as the sun went down through the clouds and disappeared behind the mountains. They were shot from Second Beach, on the western side of Stanley Park, facing English Bay and with Point Grey and Bowen Island in the background.

By popular request, and also to a lesser extent because I’ll enjoy doing it and might even benefit from it myself, I’ve finally decided to write my own modest HDR tutorial. In order to do so, I must make an assumption and two statements. First, I suppose that my esteemed readers will have found my previous HDR-related posts, particularly Still playing with exposure blending and HDR, HDR photography meets quantum physics and Discussing HDR photography. Next, I solemnly declare being a newbie at HDR and warn said readers that my rambling should be taken with a grain of salt, if not of 400 ISO. I strongly urge anybody interested in HDR to check out the links I’ll provide throughout the post because they are quite comprehensive and in many cases much more thorough than I could ever be. I must also emphasize that this cannot really be a tutorial because most readers will not yet have available the scripts I’m referring to, and could not compare or practice. So I’ll call this a comment on my workflow rather than a tutorial.

My first contact with HDR was an accident, or rather a coincidence. I was scrolling through albums on Flickr and came upon a category of rather stunning - while a little surreal - photographs. I researched the subject and immediately knew I was going to like it. It was called High Dynamic Range. It opened new doors and unleashed a photographer’s creativity in ways that very much appealed to the landscape maniac I am.

Further research soon revealed that HDR was in its infancy, and that much debate surrounded it. I began looking for tutorials and actual tools. Three main streams emerged from the many pages I read: it seemed HDR pictures were most often generated via either a piece of software called Photomatix, through Photoshop’s integrated merge tool, or via other less known scripts or programs.

I started by playing with Photomatix (HDR blend above) for some time but while it created fascinating images, the necessary tone mapping made them a little abstract and painting-like. The program is very good at rendering complex textures and does wonders for interior scenes in artificial lighting but I find it too extreme for normal landscape photography. There’s an excellent tutorial and interesting images at Stuck in Customs.

So I went on to try Photoshop’s « Merge to HDR » tool (left); it was all right but the results still didn’t impress me that much.

Then one day, I found Timothy Farrar’s brilliant set of Photoshop scripts and actions, Farrar Focus Digital Darkroom 5. I dropped everything else I was doing and immersed myself in HDR, learning the art, refining my workflow and experimenting with the new camera I ordered along with the script. ;- ) That was a year ago.

I’m still passionately shooting most of my landscape pictures in HDR and every day I learn a new trick or technique. So my so-called tutorial will concentrate more on workflow and personal preferences then on HDR itself as a technique. Because of the radically different nature of tools like Photomatix, Photoshop and the scripts I use, some of the steps I describe might not apply to someone using a different tool. Bear with me however, and do yourself a favor: if you are considering HDR seriously and are not completely satisfied with what you’ve found so far, you owe it to yourself to have a look at Timothy’s scripts. As far as I am concerned, they simply rock.

I use a Canon Digital Rebel XTi (400D) DSLR and my only lens for the time being is the cheap 18-55mm that came with the body. A sturdy tripod is a must and I carry it everywhere with me. I also use a cable remote in order to avoid camera shake, as well as mirror lock once in a while. The camera is always set to manual mode to give me full control on depth of field, and I obviously shoot RAW pictures with the camera set to the Adobe RGB color space (closer to the giant ProPhoto I use in Photoshop.)

As long as I am doing landscapes, I systematically bracket all my exposures, taking a series of 3 shots for each scene: underexposed by 2 f-stops, correct metered exposure and overexposed by 2-stops. I make sure to vary speed rather than exposure in order to keep depth of field constant. When initially metering the scene and deciding on where to start the bracket, I do my best to « expose (to the) right », choosing to offset the 3 exposures slightly towards the right of the histogram to maximize signal-to-noise ratio. More than 3 exposures would be beneficial for the technique I use but I haven’t gotten that far yet and I will need an even better tripod because the extra manipulation required will increase the risk of moving the camera between shots. Timothy Farrar wrote a great page on the selection of adequate bracketed exposures for HDR blending. Below are the 3 RAW exposures captured for this page’s example:

Once back at the base, the magic begins. The current version of Timothy’s scripts, FFDD5, runs from Photoshop and allows me to open 3 RAW files via Camera Raw, leaving them untouched and linear, and then blend them into a 16-bit HDR digital negative. Like any such file, the resulting negative still needs development but it now has a much better tonal range than the originals did individually. There is no tone mapping involved since the process is different and the image generated isn’t actual HDRI, which would be unreadable by my screen. We have simply combined the best of all three shots and end up with a dynamic range that is closer to 8 stops, as opposed to the 5 we started with.

Now some of the other actions written by Timothy come into play. Again his site has a very thorough explanation of the development process, but I’ll resume it by saying that I add adjustment layers on which I set brightness and contrast separately, as well as saturation. This is similar to using graduated neutral density filters in the field, only much more flexible and powerful. For example, to achieve a pleasant, natural looking sunset, I’ll typically have to set brightness for the mid-tones, boost contrast up, and then darken the sky and lighten the foreground. I sometimes end up with up to 10 or even 15 adjustment layers (right) - which are non destructive - that I’ll only flatten at the end.

Here, a short parenthesis is in order. I have been testing the new version of the blending script and it’s quite amazing. Working on DNG files instead, it is much more intelligent and allows for better batch processing. It will identify properly named groups of files in a folder and its subfolders, blend them accordingly into a high-res digital negative, and also generate a low-res version of the picture to which I can then apply my adjustment layers much faster. I save the newly developed low-res file with its layers and go back to the script to make it generate a high-res version of the original blend, completely developed and ready for final tweaking. Quite awesome.

My now developed digital negative routinely receives a dose of denoising combined with some sharpening, both of which are done by - yes you guessed it - more actions from FFDD5. However, I must insist on the fact that the HDR blending achieved by FFDD5 is by itself the most amazing denoising tool I’ve ever encountered. The process easily beats both Photoshop’s internal noise reduction tools and third-party plugins, and once again it is non-destructive. With FFDD5, noise suppression is obtained by adding tonal range to an image, rather than by suppressing existing noise in a conventional way which unavoidably causes a loss of sharpness and slight blur of the image. So in the end, while the main purpose of HDR blending remains for me the gain in tonal latitude required to render landscapes the way I see them, I value the noise reduction just as much, especially with printing in mind.

The following is a 200% crop of the results (keeping in mind that my lens is soft): both sides were processed with the same brightness, contrast and saturation adjustment layers. On the left is the correct single exposure from the series of 3 bracketed ones; on the right is the final blended HDR exposure, denoised and sharpened.

Last, I’ll straighten a tilted horizon, reduce lens distortion if needed, remove sensor spots if any and rethink my framing one last time, almost always aiming for compliance with the sacred Rule of Thirds or even attempting to ace the elusive Fibonacci spiral-based Divine Proportion.

My final image (left) is saved as a full size flattened TIFF with the ProPhoto color space embedded, and then reduced to web standards for my blog, a JPEG image of around 800px horizontal size, compressed at 90% quality in the sRGB space.

I hope this will have helped a few people find inspiration and motivation to explore new fields. I might sound biased towards my favorite HDR tools, and I am. With a bit of luck, my oversimplification of things will not have annoyed the pros or offended the authors of such great scripts.

Someone was recently commenting on Kodak’s new color sensors that will be hitting the market next year, and new digital cameras soon ridding themselves of their low-light slavery to the good old flash. HDR is the logical progression for in-camera picture optimization. It’s only a matter of time. Wait and see…

In the next post, I’ll add the usual slideshow of the final images taken along with the ones used here.

Experimenting with a new beta FFDD script kindly provided for testing by Timothy Farrar, I must say that I am having a whole lot of fun with photography and HDR, and have come to the following uncorrelated conclusions:

• The level of noise reduction achieved by blending multiple bracketed exposures into a final HDR digital negative is amazing;
• I need a better lens or two. The generic zoom lens that came with the Canon XTi is just not good enough, too soft and cheap, as any bundled lens;
• I must, repeat, MUST get myself very soon to an area that has reds and yellows and oranges. BC’s beautiful blues and greens are getting on my nerves.

If my legs accept to carry me across the grass and into the street, I’m going to buy myself an ice cream. I’m dripping in a mixture of sweat and water from sticking my head under the park’s public shower, but I’m sure they’ve seen it all before and I want that ice cream. I’ve wanted it since the second bridge, when the thought of the freezing water below crept into my mind. Of course I was on a schedule and only took time to snap a picture of the canyon, and my fingers at that time passing by too fast. But now, many, many rocks, roots and spiders’ webs later, I will finally collapse on a bench and delightfully freeze my throat with vanilla and caramel.

...

When the bus dropped my off outside the Shire at Lynn Canyon Park, almost two and a half hours ago, I had just about had it with the uninterrupted chatter of a trio of Hobbits bound for the same destination, and who had been telling each other since Lonsdale Quay how wonderful the place was going to be. I knew that already and could have used a bit of peace instead, but they were so thrilled with the perspective of crossing the wobbly bridge and dipping their furry feet in the ice cold turquoise water of the creek that they made me wish I could just lean over and turn them to stone.

Hopping off the bus, I started at a brisk pace towards the Park’s entrance, anxious to leave behind the unavoidable crowds such a beautiful day had attracted. I crossed the suspension bridge in a hurry, contributing shamelessly to its irritating movement and probably blurring a few pictures as I went by. As I stepped up on the eastern side of the canyon, a small sign identified the Baden Powell Trail and pointed to the left and right with destinations and distances. To the left was Horseshoe Bay, over 30 km away; to the right, Deep Cove, 12.2 km and an estimated 4.5 hours. I boldly intended to make it in 1.5 instead.

Having never before hiked that section of the trail, I was vaguely aware that my attempt to run it in such a short time was probably as doomed as that of asking an Elfe for advice, but I like a challenge and I would do my best.

The first part was easy. A now familiar path went down along the creek, up high on its eastern bank, passing Twin Falls and the large bottom pool where I will go swim a little later this summer. Quite a few people – small and big folks - where walking up or down and I could hear voices through the woods, over a strong background of water falling from high. I started slowly, warming up my knees and ankles in preparation for the unknown terrain to come. The backpack, even with its straps short and tight, was dancing a little bit on my shoulders, weighted by the two Gatorade bottles, lembas and the camera. I had decided not to bring Abe and gone for the good old G3, sturdier and more compact. I would really have liked a picture of a dragon.

Eventually, the trail abandoned the river and turned sharply left, heading east over a first steep shoulder. I soon realised that, not knowing what lay ahead and with almost 12 km to go, I was going to have to pace myself and take it easy on the climbs. My hour and a half suddenly felt like it was swelling up a bit. I nonetheless decided to walk up the more vertical parts and run the rest. My legs were reminding me grumpily that the 11 km run around Stanley Park the day before might not have been the brightest idea after all.

The shoulder ended and as soon as the slope flattened, I resumed my run through the woods on a narrow and winding path. I couldn’t go very fast and had to watch my steps carefully to avoid twisting an ankle on the many rocks and roots. Stanley Park and False Creek are great, but they don’t prepare you for this kind of anarchy. The worse part of my usual city run is avoiding goose droppings and other runners.

I was finally alone. My breath was very short. Not wearing my MP3 player (I never do on trail runs because it would be a shame not to listen to the woods, the chirping of birds, to giggling of mountain streams, the whistling of leafs in the wind, my lungs on fire sounding like a fog horn) I was able to keep an ear in front of me and the other behind, watching for the unlikely Orc, even though this part of Middle Earth is rather safe and enjoyable. The tall trees were staring at me from above, murmuring to each other as I went past.

I crossed a mountain road and went down the other side of the small mountain. At the bottom, another bridge led me over the deep canyon of Seymour River. I took a picture and the ice cream dream was born. The other bank climbed steeply, the trail coming close to a few houses and disappearing again into the old forest. Some guy running with his dog passed me at a good pace and vanished ahead of me. I secretly decided he must have been living in one of the houses below and was only going for the daily 15 min jog. Now that I think about it, he must have been an Elve in ordinary clothes; he ran silently and effortlessly. Even the dog had something noble about it. Anyway, my ego was hurt and for a while I was breathing so hard I thought I had actually spat it out. I considered turning around to go look for it, but it would have chipped at my hour and a half goal even further and I figured that living without an ego couldn’t be so bad after all.

It was a long climb. Nothing like the Grouse Grind, of course, which ascends about 1000m in less than 2 km. But after the Grind, you are done. Here, I had to save energy to drag myself through a grass field, many kilometres away, to go buy an ice cream cone. I had started at an elevation of 155m at the Lynn Canyon Suspension Bridge, gone down some 75m to the first fork and then climbed up to around 420m, top of the day’s route. When I reached that elevation and could finally see the trail angle east again and ease down, I glanced at my watch: 65 min since departure. I was in trouble. I would have to finish the run in 30 minutes to meet my deadline and had no idea of how much more lay ahead.

But the trail widened up a lot and started descending softly in a straight line. I picked up the pace. A few mountain bikers were climbing in the opposite direction with great effort, their wheeled horses stumbling on the stones in the trail. My breathing was back under control but the legs were stiffening. One bottle of Gatorade was gone, so was the power lembas. The trail now had small area maps that kept me updated of my progression, however without showing me the end of the run and the ice cream store.

I crossed Seymour Road, and kept descending. Finally, the sky appeared in a clearing through the trees. There was a gigantic power line above me; I followed it and came to a cliff overlooking Indian Arm. The power line was jumping right over it, lined with orange balls as warning for planes. The view point had to be close. I ran a few hundred meters to the right and I was there: barren rocks at the top of an intermediate shoulder not far from Deep Cove, which I could see down to the south. I snapped a few more pictures, sweat dripping into my eyes, and headed back out as fast as I could run, huffing and puffing under the disapproving looks of a father and two cute little girls who obviously thought I was crazy to hurry so much and would miss all the fun and beauty of the place. I had been walking and running for an hour and a half. My deadline had just expired, but I could smell the stables.

The trail angled along the side of the mountain, going up and down and crossing many small streams via wooden bridges. More people were coming, now, probably Deep Cove residents on their usual hike to the view point. My legs were becoming goofy and not lifting up as high as I ordered them to. A few roots caught me by surprise and it was miracle that I didn’t go flying all the way down to the village.

At last, some traffic noise, a few voices, echoes of a blacksmith at work and round Hobbit houses appeared down below. I came out into a street, suddenly stopped, turned around, and I was done. The Baden Powell Trail sign said « Lynn Canyon, 12.2 km, this way ». I looked down at my watch. Two hours flat. Oh well. I’d do better next time.

I stumbled towards the village core, legs of lead and sore back, stuck my head under the shower’s cold water, and looked around for an ice cream store. And still not an Orc in sight..

10:15 on (another) Tuesday night

After staring at the city through my giant windows for a long, long time, I’ve come to the conclusion that modern society thrives on individual unhappiness, which is the opposite of... happiness, yes. And by happiness, I mean a broader condition than just smiley-happy, of course. I mean balance, fulfillment, joy, evolution, satisfaction, peace, etc. But all these things are really non-productive to our society in its present stage.

Here’s my point: unhappy people have cravings and addictions. They eat more, they drink more - they buy more. They spend money. So a capitalist society needs an unhappy population to prosper. So does a religion; unhappy people tend to need miracles. They need to pray more often. They hope for salvation. They seek guidance and counseling. Politics also rely on the unhappiness of the voters. The electoral process is based on the power of insatisfaction rather than that of satisfaction. Happy people probably won’t vote as much and if they do they won’t elect the most eager and corrupted parties. The war machine needs unhappy people to support its absolute craziness and to approve killing in the name of this and that. The entertainment industry feeds on unhappy people because they are the prime audience, being more vulnerable and more easily influenced.

So in the end, being happy despite the trend is basically latent anti-conformism. Hippies might have been right in more than one way. To be happy is to protest the stupidity of our society, it’s a form of passive resistance to the self-destructive tendencies of our race. Happy people go against the flow. They not only have to protect themselves from the demons inside, but from those outside too. So kudos to happiness. And here are my two happy pictures of the day.

Each year, with the coming of summer, a strange socio-geographical phenomenon occurs in Richmond: the human tide of the Night Market. For nearly five months, every Friday, Saturday and Sunday, a flow of up to 18,000 visitors a night invades the 400,000 sq. ft area where 400 kiosks await them, offering everything from delicious Asian foods to cheap electronics, bags and gadgets.

The tide rises fast, and a half hour after opening, the market is already so full it’s difficult to move around. People are patient; they roam around, shopping, eating and having fun. A few kids cry, overwhelmed by the crowd’s density, but they cannot run; parents keep a close leash on them as if they lost their kid in there, they might as well buy a new one. Walking around with food becomes tricky because the human tide is always in motion and threatens to squeeze you so close to your plate it would become imprinted on your shirt.

Later, when the evening is over and the tide recedes, the place is left empty and suddenly quiet. A few cleaners spring into action like as many crabs on a deserted beach, until finally the Night Market goes to sleep.

My trip along the human tide and into the market, this year, was marked by a crude disappointment: it seems that the millions of people who visited the event last year must not have enjoyed the Mango Rolls as much as I had because their stand did not reappear. But I had my camera with me, of course, and holding it at arm’s length above my head, I pretended to be lifting it out of the reach of giant waves and snapped away at the crowd.

Location: Stanley Park Seawall. Background: Lions Gate Bridge. Foreground: grey heron and a rock. Meaning of life that evening: still 42.

More random glimpses of Vancouver, snapshot style.

Walking along the train tracks on Commissioner Street, inside the Port of Vancouver area, I came upon silos that stood above me like merciful giants absorbed in their own endeavors.

I stopped in a back alley, amused by the color similarity between the parking sign and the Smart car, and by the fact that the first was actually bigger than the latter. Then, just as I was pressing the shutter, this guy came out of nowhere, repelling down his window washing rope and unknowingly linking the sign to the small car.

The heron on Lost Lagoon caught me by surprise, flying off before I could setup the shot. I whipped the camera around and snapped a picture through the trees. The shot is slightly blurry but I love the reflection.

Darkness is nothing but a chance for light to prevail. The darker it gets, the prettier light becomes, the friendlier it is to the eyes, and the warmer to the heart. Nighttime in the city is a clashing of neons and mercury lights and flashing signs; a succession of tiny universes in which mini-stars shine bravely over their planetary systems - a shops’ window, a portion of sidewalk, a few people cruising by, a tree maybe and a couple of parked cars...