HDR Post-Processing Tutorial

This tutorial will cover how to edit those HDR photos that you have taken as explained in the first tutorial "The Basics of HDR"

Every has their own different ways to process their HDR photos. For me, I edit my photos using Photomatix and then subsequently by Photoshop. I like my HDR effect to have less saturation and more details.

Today we are going to work on this sunset photo. This is a regular un-edited sunset photo taken using regular settings. Sunset? Not too visible.

 Our final product. A HDR sunset photo.

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ROM of Nachu & Meiyappan

I was recently asked to shoot for an ROM of Nachu & Meiyappan. I've done wedding shots before but this is my first time shooting for an ROM. What's more, the couple are Indians, so I have a lack of understanding of their culture and procedure during the ROM. If you ask me, sure it's a challenge, but I'm prepared for it.

A few days before this ROM, I attended a seminar from Clubsnap about wedding photography. What I learnt was that I need a 33k hasselblad camera, a huge light & umbrella, and of course, assistants to do anything but shooting. Sure, I have none of the 3, and nowhere near, so most of things don't apply. But what I took away from the seminar is the way the photographer interacts with the model, and some typical wedding poses (and it helps alot!).

Enjoy the photos!

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Buying Body or Lens?

Whether or not, you own a DSLR or considering buying one, this is one of the things you must consider. Good body with a lousy lens or lousy body with a good lens? Let me take you through and help you make the decision.

Image Quality

If you're looking for image quality, then a good lens must be in your shopping list. Light itself is rather difficult to manage. Lenses often suffer from various forms of optical degradation, such as vignetting, barrel distortion, Chromatic Aberration, flare. You see, even the best and most expensive lens may not fully resolve these issues, but merely reduce the effects.

Let's bring out an example. I used 2 different lens on the same camera body to shoot the same subject. On the left is shot with a EF-S 15-85mm f/3.5-5.6 lens, selling for about $900 online. On the right is shot with a EF-S17-85mm lens, selling for about $660 online. Both pictures are shot with Canon EOS 7D.

My first impression is that the 15-85mm lens has a better contrast than the 17-85mm. Zooming in, you can clearly see the difference in sharpness. If you own a 18-55mm kit lens, the results are worse than the 17-85mm lens.

Comparing 15-85mm vs 17-85mm (click to enlarge)

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