Take Me Home Country Road

Posted by Don Smith (California, United States) on 18 June 2008 in Landscape & Rural.

Smoke from a nearby wildfire burning in Santa Cruz County allowed for a colorful sky at sunset near where I live in San Benito County, California. This image is an HDR with five 1-stop bracketed frames processed with Photomatix Pro software. I reopened the saved 16-bit TIFF in Adobe Camera Raw and put the finishing touches on it. If you haven't experimented with HDR, you have some options. I have found Photoshop's CS3's HDR too hit-and-miss for my taste. Photomatix Pro is a stand-alone software developed by a French company (HDRSoft). Please click here to visit their site: Photomatix Pro. It yields much better and consistent results. Please use my code at checkout donsmithphotography to receive a 15% discount. My goal with HDR is to not make it appear as an HDR image. Hopefully I have succeeded with this image. To see more of my images, please visit my website at Don Smith Photography

Comments (18)

Marie Le Corre from Dauphiné, France

Extraordinary colours for this beautiful landscape

18 Jun 2008 9:53am

Ekaputra Tupamahu from Malang, Indonesia

gorgeous image!!!

18 Jun 2008 10:55am

crafts from Malang, Indonesia

Surely my home isn't like this.. but I love to have such one. Beautiful!! great job..

18 Jun 2008 11:26am

Stefan from Thiersee, Austria

What a wonderful landscape, exellent!

18 Jun 2008 2:20pm

Don Smith from California, United States

Hi Marie, Ekaputra, crafts and Stephane,

I am blessed to live in a beautiful area. There is a lot I do not like about California, but one certainly cannot complain about its beauty. My home is located just over those hills under the little blanket of fog (about center of the frame). This is the golden color that these hills (the Diablo Mountains) turn every summer. They are perhaps most photogenic in the spring when they are lush green. I live in a coastal valley (Santa Clara Valley). In this image, you are looking west towards the Pacific Ocean (the Monterey Bay) about 30 miles as the crow flies.

18 Jun 2008 2:33pm

alex centrella from California, United States

great old country look..

18 Jun 2008 2:33pm

Don Smith from California, United States

Thanks Alex!

18 Jun 2008 2:35pm

Observing from Chester, United Kingdom

Your hdr processing looks great, just the right amount. Thats a lovely scene Don.

18 Jun 2008 5:35pm

SKHallisey from Montreal, Canada

great picture, i clicked on it because i wasn't sure if it was an hdr or not, so i think you have the right amount since it could be either/or

18 Jun 2008 8:36pm

Ana Lúcia from Leiria, Portugal

Very interesting sky. I love the way you've captured this. Nice colours.

18 Jun 2008 9:06pm

dj.tigersprout from San Bruno, United States

that light in the sky is very painterly... simply beautiful!

18 Jun 2008 10:52pm

Don Smith from California, United States

Hi Observing, SK, Ana and dj,

HDR is really a blast to play with. You just have to have a different mindset when making images with all the software options available today!

18 Jun 2008 11:01pm

Jerry from Tampa, United States

OUTSTANDING image Don!! Simply gorgeous!

19 Jun 2008 12:26am

DarkElf from Perth, Australia

great HDR effort in this shot. I appreciate your comments that you try to keep HRD photos looking real and this is what I always look for in HDR as well... this one looks pretty good indeed, great light balance without the plastic look and feel of some HDRs...

19 Jun 2008 4:42am

Don Smith from California, United States

Hi Jerry and DarkElf,

Thanks for the comments guys. I agree DarkElf, it is so tempting to go over-the-top with HDR. My hopes are that one day there will be a sensor/processor that will capture the range of human vision (11 stops of light / 2000:1 contrast range). I know I am aging myself here, but when I was young, audio was still limited to less than a human's ability to hear. Then Dr. Bose came along and expanded the range of sound to exceed the human audio range. I am certain we will get there with digital in regards to human vision. Won't it be liberating to have a camera that can see as we do? I am told by camera reps and sales people that the R&D money goes into megapixels - that dynamic range isn't "sexy" - they can't sell that to the average amateur. But megapixels are topping out. It is akin to computer speed; computers are fast enough. Most people don't care about faster processors these days. Hopefully we have hit that point with sensors. My hopes (and many of my professional colleagues hopes) are that the R&D money will go to increasing dynamic range. I'd be interested in hearing others chime in about this topic - how do you guys feel about this?

19 Jun 2008 1:25pm

pedro alexandre from loures, Portugal

usualy hdr tends to exagerate, you got this one nicely, good work.

19 Jun 2008 8:13pm

Stéphane from Near to BXL, Belgium

Hi Don very beautiful picture.
The D-Lighting option in the new bodies is maybe an indication that camera vendors starts to think about dynamic ranges. So may be you dreams will come true. But we will than have to work with other color space than sRGB, use tiff or invent the 16bits-Jpeg and buy better monitors to really benefit from it, I guess.
Regards

19 Jun 2008 8:30pm

Don Smith from California, United States

Hi Pedro and Stepane,

Thanks Pedro - a natural look is the goal. I don't blame HDR, I blame the people using it. Stephane, you are probably right. I keep hearing about a 32-bit floating chip, but I have no idea what it is. Foveon was originally going to be the Holy Grail, but that has not caught on either. Let's face it, Nikon and Canon drive the market. We'll see what they come up with. Once they realize that megapixels isn't a key concern, they will turn their attentions elsewhere.

19 Jun 2008 10:14pm

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