The Think Tank

I took a few shots last night on the way home to experiment with HDR (High Dynamic Range) photography.  Basically you take a series of photos at different exposures levels, thereby capturing a much broader range of color and contrasts than you can get from a single exposure, and then you merge them all together into a single image.  The result should not only have all aspects of the image properly exposed, which is almost impossible when you have very bright objects framed with very dark objects, but the contrast level and color saturation is also enhanced.

Last night I was using 1 total f-stop adjustment over the course of 5 frames.  The end results were pretty cool, though I’m not sure that my subjects really show the full potential for this type of imaging.  You can click on the image to see the rest.

I’ll be playing with this more in the future, so I’m sure you will get to see other examples in the days to come.

Debbie and Sandy invited us down to Sweet Home to take part in the town’s Independence Day celebrations, culminating in a big fireworks display at the reservoir.  As is usual for us, we left late so we missed most of the festivities, but we did get to see the fireworks show.  Apparently it was scaled down from years past, victim of the poor economy, but it still seemed pretty good to us!

On the way out of town we got a Google Alert about a new chair for our den that was too good of a deal to pass up, so we detoured to go check it out and wound up purchasing it.  Since we had the fancy new chair with us, I hauled it out of the van and set it up on the roadside and turned it into the best camp chair ever!  We got a lot of comments from the passers-by, let me tell you!

Sorry for the delay in getting these up.  Seems like it has been a busy week, mainly because we have been doing extra, last minute training for STP (which is next weekend).

Any way, the photos we took over the Fourth of July weekend are up on the gallery site.  As always you can get there by clicking on the image or by clicking on the “Think Tank Gallery” link above.  Most of the shots are from the fireworks display in Pacific City that Mo, Mom, Debbie and I went to.  There are also some shots from our very own fireworks display as well.

Debbie got some good shots of both, in addition to some shots of our annual barbecue, but I haven’t gotten those from her yet.  I’ll add them when I can.

Last weekend Mom, myself, Joel and Maure set out for what we intended to be a biking weekend in Eastern Oregon.  Our original plan had been to visit Crater Lake, but due the abnormally cool and wet spring, a large portion of the Rim Drive was inaccessible under a late snowfall.  In fact, the forecast the weekend was for lows in the 20’s and snow Saturday night, which did not sound like good biking weather to us.

We made up a new plan pretty much on the spot Friday morning, deciding on the John Day Fossil Beds because they were supposed to be beautiful, there was ample camping available, and the weather was supposed to be warm with only a slim chance of rain on Saturday night.  Maybe even an isolated thunder storm, which is always cool and might make for some neat photos.

In the event, we definitely got the thunderstorms but that was about all that went according to plan.

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The Rose Festival officially kicked off yesterday despite some pretty crummy weather.  Along with the opening ceremonies always comes a grand fireworks display, and we try to make it each year.  Undaunted by the prediction of rain, our dear friend Debbie came up from Eugene to enjoy the show.

I headed straight over to the East Side Esplanade after work (at 3pm) and helped them set up our Easy-Ups, which worked a real treat keeping us dry in the pounding rain.  Needless to say our early arrival was not as necessary as it has been in years past when the weather was beautiful, but we didn’t want to take any chances.  The wind blew pretty hard until we got our tents anchored, then it mostly died down and took a back seat to the rain, which was impressive, but beneath our canopies we stayed nice and dry.  Shannon met up with us when she was done with work and we all ate fried chicken, drank warm coffee, indulged in some beers, and just generally had a great time.

Seven Chilly hours after we setup camp, amid a moderate drizzle, the fireworks show started.  Quite a few brave souls had ventured forth into the unpleasant evening to join us, and everyone was greatly pleased by the display.  In my opinion the show was much better than it has been for many years, with the fireworks more spread out and very evenly distributed between high and low, which made it a lot easier to photograph.  The only real trouble with the pictures came from rain drops on the lens, which is just part of the deal when you  aim your camera skyward into the rain.

You can see all the pics by clicking on one of the images above or by clicking here.