The calm after the storm

[Rich Rohrich]

I was pretty much trapped in my house for most of the recent snowstorm here in Chicago.

I wasn't able to capture the "scope" of the storm adequately in any of the pics I took in the neighborhood. Instead I took some pics at the lakefront as the sun was coming up on Saturday morning a couple of days after the storm quit, but they all pretty much sucked too. :bang:


I was going to just delete them but instead I tried to salvage the few that weren't totally embarrassing by stacking a few bracketed images to make up some HDR images. Even after all that work it's still debatable whether I should have deleted them. :rotfl:

 

[Rich Rohrich]

I think there might have been a chemical leak in the house while I was working on these. They got a little weird. :whoa:

 

[IndyMX]

Did that chemical come in a 12 ounce brown bottle, that originated in St. Louis by any chance?

 

[Chili]

My favorite by far, not sure what it is but it just has an uber cool feel to it for me.

 

[whenfoxforks-ruled]

The storms 1 fatality, some old guy fell in the lake, around 11 pm, at the height of the storm walking along the lake front. These were the end of the storms clouds. The second pic is awesome.

 

[Rich Rohrich]

My favorite by far, not sure what it is but it just has an uber cool feel to it for me.

I forgot my wide angle lens, but remembered the fisheye so this was the best I could do. :bang:

Did that chemical come in a 12 ounce brown bottle, that originated in St. Louis by any chance?

I don't drink. I'm ignorant enough without it. :whoa:

These were the end of the storms clouds. The second pic is awesome.

Thanks Bob, that one is the closet to the reality of the first big crack of sun. It was pretty amazing looking, I just wish I had done a better job of capturing it.

 

[ellandoh]

#2 in post 1 and #2 in post 2 are my faves. im thinking about swiping them for my desktop screen :boss:

 

[denbsteph]

those are freakin cool! Nice job with the fish eye lense!

 

[Kawidude]

Really nice use of HDR on those! Very cool. I think I like the second shot the best. That little bit of orange cracking through all the blue and gray is really nice.

 

[Rich Rohrich]

Thanks Kawi, that one is my favorite as well because it's the closet to the way the scene looked in person for a few fleeting moments as the sun was just popping up.

I used a demo of the new NIK Software HDR Efex Pro to do the HDR merge, and it's pretty awesome. I think I'm going to have to buy it because I really like shooting at night and under low light conditions and I think there is a lot of potential in using HDR to really open up the shooting opportunities I've been missing.

http://www.niksoftware.com/hdrefexpro/usa/entry.php

 

[Kawidude]

The HDR effect is something that's always interested me, but I've never given it a shot. I've been shooting so much for work these days that I haven't used my camera much for my own stuff (the stuff I enjoy shooting). I need to get going on that and try some new things.

Are you actually layering bracketed shots from the camera, or are you creating your bracketed shots in Photoshop? I always wondered if there is a vast difference in quality between the two methods.

 

[_JOE_]

Picture number two looks just like it does here in the evening.......except we have much less open water.

 

[Bonehead]

Way cool Rich I like #2 sunny and 55 in WA. today Snow for the weekend but gone by monday

 

[Rich Rohrich]

Are you actually layering bracketed shots from the camera, or are you creating your bracketed shots in Photoshop? I always wondered if there is a vast difference in quality between the two methods.

Kawi - I'm shooting 5-7 evenly bracketed exposures for most HDR stuff I've tried. The shot in question is 5 shots ranging from -2EV to +2EV.