The ruins of Chaumont castle

The ruins of Chaumont castle

 

Storm light on the ruins of the medieval castle of Chaumont in Haute Savoie.

Playing with tonemapping on a tif file and a real HDR seascape

Mediterranean storm at Gigaro beach

When i processed the image of my previous post i wanted it to look natural.
The result was what i wanted but after a few days i found it really too flat for my eyes. So i processed the 48 bits tif file in Photomatix to add a little of tonemapping.
You can see the result just above. I prefer it to the previous image.

Just under, you can find a real HDR version of the same scene, also done with Photomatix but from 3 exposures.

Gigaro beach, the day after

Mediterranean storm on Gigaro beach

Some days the sea looks like the ocean.

On the beach before the rain - HDR

Bau Rouge beach before the rain

A few time after the rainbow posted in my previous post.
And for the newest readers, you can have a look here at my tips for HDR landscapes, they also work for seascapes :)

Crazy night, strong wind and wild sea

Mediterranean storm in Provence

For a few days, we had here a kind of wind storm. The wind was so strong that some of the big ships sailing beteween the continent and Corsica were seriously delayed.
Yesterday in the evening things were going better, so i planned some seascapes for this morning at dawn. In the middle of the night, we were awaken by the noise of thunder, wind and crazy rain. At 5 am, no more noise, i left the bed and drove to the sea under a beautiful starry night. Arrived on the place, standing on the top of a cliff 40 meters above the sea, i was in a really crazy wind with salt water vapors all around me and i saw that the rocks where i wanted to go were under the waves. So i decided to move to an other place not too far. There i could approach the sea a little more but not as wanted. I spent there a few times, took a few shots of the crashing waves but it was definitely not a good day for beautiful seascapes.

Natural threat - Cloudy seascape

Natural threat : clouds over the Mediterranean sea
large view

An incoming storm over the Mediterraneans sea at Carqueiranne in Provence.

The sky was done by HDR processing 3 exposures, the sea and ground come from a unique shot.

Stormy dawn on the sea

Stormy dawn on the seaMediterranean seascape at Le Bau Rouge in Provence.
Don't miss the large view.

HDR on the beach

Mediterranean storm
I live 30 km far from the Mediterranean sea but i didn't shot any seascape during the past 3 years. I can't explain why, but that's like it.
From one month, things have changed. When i can find a moment for non commmercial photography, i go to the Bau-Rouge, a wild and rocky beach near Carqueiranne and try to catch some beautiful landscapes before summer when the light will be more difficult and when the place will be overcrowded.

In the begining of march, i was there in a bad weather afternoon. At the end of the afternoon, the weather was more and more bad and a big storm was coming. Just before leaving, i could catch some images like the one you can see above.

To keep all the sky contrasts and to avoid underexposing too much the darkest parts of the scenes, i shot 3 exposures for this image.
I converted the 3 raw files to 3 48 bits tif with SilkyPix. The tif files where combined and converted to HDR and tonemapped with Photomatix.
Then as i wanted a perfect sea with no gosthing effect i've blended the tonemapped image with one of the original tif file and kept only the sky from the tonemapped photo.