A change of technique

A LONG day at work staring at a presentation on a screen across the room. Fortunately it was actually interesting. But because of it, my eyes are attempting an early exit from the day. We are evaluating an entire new system at work to maintain our data. So big decisions for our campus ahead.

The weather is bipolar once again with hail, rain, wind and slush. Some whispers of snow, which wouldn't surprise me since it was a mere 36 degrees (F) when I stopped off this evening for this shot.

I tried a different technique tonight. I have been snapping a RAW image and then using Camera RAW to export it into several different exposures and then using Photomatix to merge and tonemap them. Recently, I watched pddesigns use her liveview function and as she moved the white box around, the camera changed its exposure time based on how light or dark the area in the white box was. This intrigued me, so tonight I used my liveview to take 3 different exposures (on a tripod of course). I first aimed it at the lightest part of the sky, then another taken while aimed at the stump and another while aimed at the sand. So I ended up with 3 different exposures but each item perfectly exposed.

When I processed it tonight, it seemed to work really well. I didn't have a horribly blown out sky or strange pixelated-ness in the dark regions. I'm excited to try this out some more actually.

I think it's off to sleep soon for the boys and I. G'night blip-universe.