A cold shoot in Prescott

Richard Charpentier Arizona, Notes from Rich, Photography, Photomatix, Photoshop, Prescott 7 Comments

Last night I did my first round of HDR shots of the Yavapai Courthouse.  The lights are pretty, and I was pretty enthused about the prospect of creating some really cool images.

Getting to the courthouse Sadira and I found ourselves just a little cold.  The temperatures were in the 20’s and I was concerned about keeping the camera out in the cold too long.  Honestly, I didn’t want to stay out in the cold too long!

We circled the entire square in 20 minutes.  I’d set up the tripod, take a look, pick a few shots and move on.  In the background Christmas music played away.  See, the main tree on the square lights up and pulsates to fairly loud music throughout the night.  A little odd, but there it is.

By the time we finished up we were both beyond chilled.  Years ago my hands got pretty badly frost bitten while on the AT (my gloves froze to my hands) and ever since my hands have been a little sensitive.  They were pretty sore last night.  I forgot my mittens on the couch……whoops!

We jumped into the Versa (my cool little scooter) and headed over to Sadira’s.  After dropping her off I headed directly home.  A few images to process you know…   😉

After getting home and turning up the heat I started off loading the photos.  I’m pretty bad when it comes to checking photos.  I want to see them as soon as possible.  And as I saw my night shots I started making selections and popping them into Photomatix.

Unfortunately, the results were less than optimal……

Think about this.  You’re shooting under incandescent lights, LED lights, street lights behind you and in front of you, etc.  All these diffferent lights provide different color temperatures.  And in the end, all these different lights affect your white balance.

When I first looked at the photos I thought they looked a little warm.  Once processed I found that the scenes were all WAY too warm.

Somebody is saying to themselves right now, “I thought you said it was cold out……”

Yes, the air was cold, and my pictures were warm.  Too much yellow, too much red, and too much noise when Photomatix finished with the HDRs.  I decided to reset the White Balance on a few shots and take my chances.  Amazingly enough, the results looked better.  I’m nowhere near done processing this set, but there might be a winner or two.  And clearly I’ll need to go back to try again with the lighting in mind.

Hopefully I’ll post more about the white balance issues from last night and share a few bad results with you so you can understand what I mean.  Stay tuned, that’ll be the next post later today.  I’d write more now, but I’ve got to get ready for a dentist appointment!

Comments 7

  1. I don’t know…I think they’re good for a first attempt! I’m sorry you forgot your mittens as well…my lips were a little frozie by the time we got done as well…

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