More Liquid HDR

Waves on water. Moving boat against a static background. Back-lit hillside with almost-backlit mountain. Bright high cloud layer. Impossible shot. Until now. (Click on the image for closer examination.)

Using my recently-discovered RAW-format HDR technique, I "developed" three exposure levels from one photograph containing the dynamic range of 36 bits per pixel instead of JPEG's 24 bits:







Photomatix helped me blend the three exposure levels into a shot that balances the highlights and shadows similar to the way my eyes did as I gazed at Mount Hood across the river from the Washington side of the Columbia Gorge. Here it is again, for comparison with the three component shots:



I know, I sound like a broken record about HDR -- but it's one of those tools I now consider to be essential. Also, shooting 36-bit RAW, every shot is automatically bracketed for post-production exposure optimization and potential HDR processing.

Who says an old dog can't learn new tricks? :-)

Moon Plus Moons

This is a very difficult shot to get, but you can't tell that from just looking at this downsized version. You can see the Moon, of course -- and Jupiter nearby. Although planetary conjunctions are not exactly uncommon, it is fairly rare to catch the Moon behind a dark translucent cloud in the same photo as a planet which is not behind a cloud. And, it's even more rare for that planet to be Jupiter. I have been trying for a long time to get our Moon in the same shot as the moons of Jupiter. The only way to capture that combination is for our Moon to get behind a cloud that is dark enough to allow a long-ish exposure for the moons of Jupiter. Last month, it almost worked.

I say "almost" because the moon chose to hide a little too soon -- the sky was not dark yet. So, while Jupiter's moons are somewhat visible, it's nothing to write home about:



Later that night, I obtained a much better dark-sky view of Jupiter's moons through an opening in the clouds:



Unfortunately, the Moon was not bashful enough to find a sufficiently dark cloud for the shot.



If you click on the image and view the shot full-screen, you can see the Jovian moons nicely in the same picture as our Moon. But someday I hope to capture the Moon as clearly as in the first shot, while the Jovian system is visible without zooming in.

But now it's winter in Oregon. Even if there is a favorable planetary conjunction of some kind, it's highly probable that they will be hiding behind thick rainclouds. Oh well. :-)

Pre-Sunrise Rainbow

Here is something you don't see every day: A pre-sunrise rainbow. The landscape was still fairly dark, bathed in the dim golden light of the not-yet-visible Sun. But the moist atmosphere above had full sunlight. Rain droplets -- which later fell on our Oregonian heads -- acted as little prisms to create a beautiful column of color.