A Little More Disney HDR

I actually finished these shots ages ago, but forgot to post them. So in case your week could use a little more sparkle:

 SPARKLIIIES. [jazz hands]

Boring Technical Stuff: I use a Canon 7D with a 17-50 lens, and post-process in Photomatix. While working on these I learned that Photomatix has a known softening issue: the finished image looks much softer/blurrier than the preview window shows it. This led to a lot of frustration, and I finally ended up just screen-capping the preview window to get this next image the way I wanted it:

See all those tiny star specks in the sky? They're not visable at all after post-processing in Photomatix - you just get a big blur, even though the preview window clearly shows it this way. Like I said, frustrating!

So if you use Photomatix, make sure your image is much sharper in Preview than you like, so that the post-process softening won't be as noticeable.

(Or you could just do the HDR tonemapping in Photomatix, and save all your other tweaks & image adjustments for Photoshop, which apparently a lot of pro photographers do. Personally I like playing with the sliders in Photomatix, though; it's way more fun there than PS.)

Most nights the shooting gallery over in Frontierland is a ghost town (heh), so you can have the whole place to yourself for long exposure shots.

This one is not from Disney, but I think it has enough pixie dust to qualify:

Back during Christmas vacation my dad - also a photography buff - and I spent one whole night playing with bokeh, the effect that gives you those blurred-out lights in the background. I found this copper wire tree in their knick-knack cabinet, set it on mirrored paper, coiled a strand of small LEDs through the "roots," and then shot the whole thing a few feet in front of the Christmas tree.

Sure, it took one whole night of prep & experimenting for just that shot, but we had a blast. (Post-processing was done in Perfect Photo 7, my go-to photo editor now for non-HDR shots when I need something beyond basic iPhoto tweaks.)

 

And finally, here's the Haunted Mansion again, which you've already seen:

I'm still learning, of course, but I hope you liked the eye candy!

*****

UPDATE: Wow, thanks for all the encouragement, guys! By popular request, I've made most of these available as prints over on DeviantArt. (If you want one that's NOT over there, just let me know and I'll add it.)

DA is really reasonable on their pricing -  8X10's start at less than $5 - and their print quality is fantastic. (I have several poster-size prints from DA.) I also get a 20% royalty, so it's a win-win. :)

Thanks again, guys! It's always awesome to make people happy just by doing something you love.