HDR – High Dynamic Range Photography

Website cambridgeincolour has a good tutorial on the technique of creating HDR photos from a series of bracketed exposures.  The result is an image with with incredible tonal range.

This is acheived using Photoshop’s built-in ‘merge to HDR’ feature, and then tweaking the results.  The tutorial is a little on the technical side, but very good.  Read the full article here.

Obama’s Official Presidential Portrait Released

President Barack Obama’s official portrait was released Wednesday on change.gov.  The portrait was taken by Pete Souza, the newly appointed official White House photographer.  It is the first time that an official presidential portrait was taken with a digital camera.

Since it’s digital, we can take a peek at the EXIF data:

It was shot Wednesday, Jan 13 at 5:38 PM with a Canon EOS 5D Mark II using a 105mm lens stopped to f/10.  Exposure was 1/125, and the ISO was 100.

Brides Speak Their Minds About Photographers’ Web Sites

As a web designer, I found this article incredibly interesting – Photo District News asked three brides to evaluate the websites of five different photographers from around the country.  Their answers are thoughtful, and give valuable insight into what might be going through potential clients minds as they view your site.  In a nutshell, the brides interviewed wanted to see pictures, of course.  Large, easy to navigate pictures.  The other thing that they placed a high importance on was biographical info and photographers blogs.  Their goal in visiting sites was really to find a photographer that they felt comfortable with, and they are basing this on the photos that they see and the personal information that the photographer reveals.

What ways could this photographer improve their site?
Jendrek: I would put the portfolio work before the info because I want to see the work before I get into details.
Saba: Organize differently, make it more user-friendly. I thought the groupings and topics were helpful though.
Erb: Add more photos, and more personal information. It is best to find a photographer who has a similar personality to the bride and groom and I would like to see more of her personality on the website.

Read the entire article here.

ProPhotoShow.net Podcasts

ProPhotoShow.net has a nice collection of podcasts focusing on marketing, equipment reviews, shooting techniques, software, and a whole bunch of other stuff.  Their podcast archive is here, and I believe they can also be found on iTunes.