My Blue Dome District photowalk, 25 Jun 2011

[Hoss]

I did one of these earlier in the year, but had my camera on the wrong ISO setting, so the photos came out ultra-grainy.

I was able to remember to set the ISO down this time.  We went from about noon to one, so I probably got in about two miles of walking today (plus about 12 flights of stairs at one of the multi-level garages.

The link below takes you to the set page; I have embedded a few teaser photos.  Keep in mind I am by no means a professional photographer, I just wanted to show people that downtown (the Blue Dome specifically) isn't dead on a Saturday afternoon.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/oilerfan/sets/72157626920989215/with/5869980707/

[Ed W]

I went over along SouthWest Boulevard to photograph the steam engine on display:



And a caboose:



The images were slightly over exposed - my bad - but after tinkering with them a bit, they seem to look OK.  I added the vignette, added contrast, and pumped the color saturation a bit.  This would be a good subject for HDR, so I'll probably go back.

[Hoss]

I went over along SouthWest Boulevard to photograph the steam engine on display:



And a caboose:



The images were slightly over exposed - my bad - but after tinkering with them a bit, they seem to look OK.  I added the vignette, added contrast, and pumped the color saturation a bit.  This would be a good subject for HDR, so I'll probably go back.

Yeah, I saw the piece on the news today about the RFMS (Channel 2).

I'd love to do HDR, but my Nikon D40 doesn't do bracketing.  Guess it's time to start thinking about upgrading.  Although this camera takes really good pictures, and after about 12000 shutter release on it, I've gotten the hang of using it pretty well.

[Ed W]

Ken Rockwell says the D40 is his workhorse camera. Mine seems to be the Kodak Z1285...and an ancient Yashica Electro 35 GT.  If the D40 does manual, it should be possible to bracket.

I purchased the 'pro' version of Zoner Photo Studio and used it to edit those photos above.  It does simple, 3 shot HDR photos, but I don't always remember to take a tripod along to steady the shots.  That has to change.  There's a Graflex Reporter tripod around here somewhere, and although it's older than me, it's still a good one.  It'll support an old Speed Graphic, but it doesn't break my back when I lift it.

[Hoss]

Ken Rockwell says the D40 is his workhorse camera. Mine seems to be the Kodak Z1285...and an ancient Yashica Electro 35 GT.  If the D40 does manual, it should be possible to bracket.

I purchased the 'pro' version of Zoner Photo Studio and used it to edit those photos above.  It does simple, 3 shot HDR photos, but I don't always remember to take a tripod along to steady the shots.  That has to change.  There's a Graflex Reporter tripod around here somewhere, and although it's older than me, it's still a good one.  It'll support an old Speed Graphic, but it doesn't break my back when I lift it.

Ah, I was talking about 'auto bracketing', where setting the bracket mode would set up your bracketing without having to fire a shot, change the exposure, etc..  I know there's ways of doing it manually, but it's more for shots I set up.  I usually don't carry a tripod or monopod on photowalks with me.

[Ed W]

I'm surprised it doesn't offer an automatic exposure bracketing function. My N6006 was designed in the late 80s and it has that!

Since I'm a belt-and-suspenders kind of guy, I went looking for the manual:

http://www.nikonusa.com/pdf/manuals/noprint/D40_noprint.pdf

All it offers is focus bracketing.

[Hoss]

I'm surprised it doesn't offer an automatic exposure bracketing function. My N6006 was designed in the late 80s and it has that!

Since I'm a belt-and-suspenders kind of guy, I went looking for the manual:

http://www.nikonusa.com/pdf/manuals/noprint/D40_noprint.pdf

All it offers is focus bracketing.

There is a way to do it manually, but it would involve either a super-steady hand, or a tripod.  If I was out for sure to HDR, I'd bring the pod along.  I tested it outside about 20 minutes ago...this author said two ways to do it; set the camera in Aperture priority, take your first shot with an exposure bias of 0, reduce the exposure bias to -1, take your next shot, raise the bias to +1, take the next shot.  Also a manual way to do it was to maintain the same aperture setting throughout, then start with your target exposure time, take the shot, reduce one full stop, take the shot, then up two stops.  I tried it out and used some free HDR software called picturenaut to test it with.  It seemed to work ok, but I've not done any HDR stuff until now, so I'll likely play around with it some more.