Today was one of those days that I really wanted to get outdoors with my cameras. I awoke this morning to the snowiest morning of this winter season. Last night I had spend an hour and a half snow blowing a foot and a half of snow out of my driveway. It was the first time this season that I really had to snow blow. Until yesterday our 2010 winter could only be called mild.

Take one of Trees in the Snow

As this morning dawned it was obvious I’d need to get started on the snow blowing early if I hoped to make three appointments scheduled for the day, in a timely fashion. However, already the landscape was tempting me and the sun wasn’t up yet. I packed my cameras and winter boots in the truck, slipped it into four-wheel drive and cautiously pulled out of the driveway that I’d cleared only a half-hour earlier. Already fresh snow was piling up and the snow covered and greasy roads would make travel slow.

From the day I’d scheduled these appointments I had harbored the hope I could wrap things up in time to do some shooting  between my last appointment and dark. Unfortunately, a packed schedule coupled with snow covered roads would erase that possibility. Still, I kept my eyes open and couldn’t pass up an early afternoon sun drenched snowscape. With two appointments looming for the afternoon, I gave in to the temptation and parked as close to the roadside snow bank as I could when two squat trees caught my attention in a windswept roadside landscape, under a sudden brilliant sun.

I only took five minutes to capture a dozen images, but it was five minutes that made my day.

Take two - I like the tuft of weeds in the lower left corner

I think I’m falling in love . . . with HDR that is. HDR, as I’ve mentioned on other occasions, stands for High Dynamic Range. The technology of digital photography is progressing at breakneck speed and the arrival of HDR software is only one of the latest advances. But, it sure is fun.

I’ve only really begun to experience the potential of HDR software to enchance my photography. Oh, all the standard considerations are still in play every time I look to ad an image to my collection. But, HDR software is already allowing me to capture images I might not otherwise have captured.

HDR, in this instance, refers to the ability of digital cameras to capture the extremes of light in a single image. I really don’t know what those extremes are, yet. But I’m confident that as soon as I think I do some new advancement will change the parameters again. Suffice to say, during the time I’ve been photographing the nature around me, I’ve gone from not understanding why my skies were often featureless even though when I framed the scene in my rangefinder I wa aware of white fluffy clouds looking quite attractive. Or, why the details I saw in the shadows when I pressed the shutter release we’re not evident in my color slides (remember them?).

I learned, of course, and bought my first graduated neutral density (GND) filters. Then, when I took those tentative initial steps into digital photography and purchased the then new Nikon D70, I discovered that the dynamic range offered by the new technology, while expanded compared to that of my “old” Nikon N70, still couldn’t capture the range of light that these old eyes could. I even added to my range of GND filters.

Recently, little more than a month ago, I was introduced to a new tool, HDR software, by a friend at MQ Camera Center in Syracuse, NY. He’d been impressed by some images another customer had brought into the store that illustrated the effectiveness of a new software, Photomatix which promised to “increase the dynamic range of your photographs.” That evening I did a little web surfing and saw my first HDR images.

For sure, some were almost garish. Others, however, were stunning. I download a free demo and went out the next day to try my hand with the new technology. While I didn’t hit the mark the first time, I was soon processing bracketed images (usually five images at +/- 1EV increments into HDR images that captured my imagination for what I might be able to do. I’ve had a few successful forays with this new tool. Above are the original images, take at the +/1 EV intervals. and at right is the resulting HDR image. I still have a lot of experimenting to do but I like where this is leading me.

It would be great to hear about any HDR success stories.