Weeky commented photo #23 - Rural landscape, mountains and clouds

Rural landscape before dusk in Haute Savoie

I'm still working on the serie about The rural landscapes around my home.
This image was done about one month ago. I was making photos of some rural fields in the light of the end of afternoon when i noticed these beautiful clouds formation over the mountains in the far background.

Scenes with such a dynamic range are not easy to capture :

• You can use some GND filters to balance highlights in the sky and foreground shadows
• You can make several shots of the scene with different exposures and then blend them digitally (using HDR method or not)

The day was a little wendy and i felt a little too lazy for multiple exposures.
So i mounted a 1.2 soft GND filter in front of my lens and could capture a raw file where highlights and shadows were both respected.

No information was lost but the raw file was difficult to process to obtain a nice photo. After many tries with curves tweaks, manual masking, etc i developped my raw files with three different exposure ajustments.
Then i used Picturenaut to produce and tonemap an hdr file.
The result was then saved as a 48 bits TIFF file that just needed some minor adjustments do give the photo you can see here.

I like to name things by their real names and for me such a worflow is not HDR Photography. There is no magic and whatever the algorithm you choose to process a single file, it can't give you more information that what is included into this single file.
If i would have shot the scene without the GND filter i would have exposed it to protect the sky for clipping and then the foreground would have been really underexposed. Then using any method to retrive informations in the shadows would have revealed more noise than image details.

Annecy lake and the Swans Island

Annecy lake and the Swans Island

The Swans Island is an artificial island done on Annecy lake in 1854. A couple of swans was given by Geneva city and they started to live there ...

I've tried GND filters on this scene but i prefer the result of this HDR image done from many exposures processed with PictureNaut and Oloneo PhotoEngine. Autumn colors and details on the island are really better.

Big sky over the autumn vineyard - HDR

Big sky over the autumn vineyard
Some vines giving a very good white wine, just around our new place.

HDR done from 6 exposures, converted to TIF with Silkypix and then to HDR and tonemapped once with Picturenaut and once with Oloneo PhotoEngine.

Notre Dame de Pitié

Notre Dame de Pitié at Collobrières in Provence

This little chapel is about 100 meters far from my home.
I've ever posted another HDR view of its interior some years ago, this one is really more quiet :)

For people interested in the technical side of photography, the final image was obtained by tonemapping the same HDR file once with Photomatix and once with Picturenaut. The 2 resulting TIF files were then blended.

Place Rouget de l'Isle

Place Rouget de l'Isle in Collobrières - Provence

For the peoples interested in technical things :

This image was created from 3 exposures blended into one real HDR image with Picturenaut.
A first tonemapping was done also with Picturenaut and then the HDR file was also tonemapped with Photomatix.
The 2 tonemapped images were then blended to give the final result.

The most difficult thing is to wait for the wind to stop :)

HDR in the mountains of the Oule Valley

Autumn landscape in the Oule Valley

The 3 exposures used in this image where done in 2007. I processed them yesterday with the following workflow i think i will re-use often :

- NEF files converted to TIF with Silkypix.
- TIF files combinated to a HDR file with Picturenaut.
- HDR image tonemaped with Picturenaut and saved as a new TIF file.
- HDR image tonemaped with Photomatix and saved as a second new TIF file.
- Manual blending of the two tonemaped TIFs giving most of the weight to the one done with Picturenaut.

And don't forget, you can have a look here at my general tips for HDR landscapes.


This will certainly be my last post befor our departure for Corsica on next tuesday. Tomorrow i'll start to pack all the computers, cameras and other photographic gear we need to carry ...

Still exploring the natural HDR landscapes capabilities of Picturenaut

Winter afternoon in La Plaine des Maures

As told in some previous posts, i've recently discovered a new HDR tool : Picturenaut. It looks to be a very good tool to produce some natural looking HDR landscapes.

This one was done from 5 exposures taken one year ago and reprocessed this morning with Picturenaut. The result was realy easy to obtain and it very difficult to see any differences with one image i took from the scene with my GND filters.
Highlights are perfect, shadows are clean and detailed, the sky is artifacts free and i can't find any ghosting.

Does it mean that i will sell my GND filters ?
Certainly not. In some cases GND will work better, in some other cases they can't be used and last point, mounting a filter holder on some recent Nikon wide angle zooms is a little tricky. That's still the photographer choice to use the best technic for each image...

Verdon river - A natural looking HDR landscape with Picturenaut

The Verdon river near Quinson

The Verson canyon is known as the European Grand Canyon. It's a beautiful place with high cliffs but there is no comparison possible with the Colorado Canyon :)

This image, shot in september and processed today is not my best of this place but i thought it should be a good test to see how to balance light and shadow with Picturenaut.

3 exposures used, raw files processed with Silkypix and HDR plus tonemapping with Picturenaut.
I'm very happy with the result, higlights are respected, shadows are very detailed and noise free.

The Roudoule river and a very few words about Picturenaut my brand new HDR toy

The Roudoule river near Puget Thenier in Provence

Another just processed from my summer archives.

The contrast between the water and the shadows under the trees was just a little too high for a very good single shot, so i decided to shoot 3 exposures to be able to try some HDR processing. I left the files sleeping some months and just reminded them this evening.

The original images where done by a windy day and the exposure times where around one second. To avoid too much ghosting artifacts in the foliage i just used 2 exposures in my HDR work. The most and the less exposed.

As i had just downloaded Picturenaut from HdrLabs i decided to use these images for a little first test and comparison with Photomatix.

So as usual i processed my raw files with SilkyPix and run the full hdr workflow first in Picturenaut and the in Photomatix. Here are my first impressions :

- I'm a long time user of Photomatix but i have to say that i was seducted by the GUI and speed of Picturenaut.

- Between the 3 or 4 tonemapping operators of Picturenaut i could not find any one that give the same results that the Detail Enhacer of Photomatix. I was a little desapointed but i've to say that Picturenaut must certainly be a very good tool for natural looking HDR images.

- I was surprised because the Picturenaut result was free of any ghosting artifact in the foliage while the image processed with Photomatix had many. Note that i don't say that's a general behavior. Some algoritms can work better with some images than with some others.


So, at the end i had my 2 tonemapped images and guess what i did :)
I blended the forest from the Picturenaut result with the river from the Photomatix one. No winner but i had a nice fun with this little experience.