Rick Williams Photography: Crater Lake Oregon

Saturday, August 18, 2012

Crater Lake Oregon

Crater Lake is located in Oregon and is the deepest lake in the United States followed by Lake Tahoe located on the California Nevada border and then Lake Chelan the third deepest in the United States located in Washington state. I have tried to capture the deep blue color for years only to be disappointed by the lack of color and detail. The top image is HDR followed by the seven images that were used to create the HDR version. In earlier posts I have explained the process, but this time I decided to include the bracketed images to give you a visual reference and simplify the idea of HDR. The bracketed images (-3, -2, -1, 0, +1, +2 and +3) following the HDR version were combined in HDR Efex Pro 2 to make the final HDR version. As you can see none of the bracketed images really capture the full dynamic range of the scene. From the cameras meta data I can tell the images were captured at 12:30pm this is a time when the dynamic range is the highest especially because there was no cloud cover just strait sun light. If I had taken the shot at sunrise, sunset or on an overcast day the image would have had a totally different feel and possibly less dynamic range. That is one of my favorite things about HDR photography it opens up the possibility to shoot all day and get a totally different feel. In the past I would have had to accept the limitations of traditional photography or wait for a more "acceptable" time or day (with less contrast) to take the the images. But thanks to technology of HDR software and since I was traveling with my family (I did not have the luxury to wait) I grabbed what I could get and shot on a tripod with a cable release to limit the possible movement in between shots so I could process the image as an HDR. In the end I was able to get an image I was a lot happier with hope you like it.