Christmas in the Capitol

The Austin Photography Group held a holiday photowalk last weekend.  Peter Talke was kind enough to organize the event and offer tips to newbies like me.  We met at the Capitol building to take some shots there before walking down Congress Ave. to 6th St.  There were some talented photographers there and I learned quite a bit.  I came away with a number of good shots and I wished there had been time to take more.  It's really cool to have other photographers around to bounce ideas off.

Since this is the week of Christmas, I'm sharing a shot of the Christmas tree in the Texas House of Representatives.  This is an HDR shot from 3 exposures (the longest of which was 4 seconds.)  It was kind of tricky lighting because of the incandescent room lighting and late day sun pouring in through the windows.  That's the cool thing about HDR though - you can really manipulate the lighting in post processing to get a great image that would be tough, if not impossible, with a single exposure.

Aperture: 8
Bracketed exposure: 1/4, 1, 4 seconds
ISO: 100
Canon 30D, 18-55mm lens at 18mm

Merry Christmas!

HDR Party at the Driskill

I attended Trey Ratcliff's HDR book launch party at the Driskill Hotel in Austin last night.  Trey shared some info about some of his work and then turned a herd of photographers loose to get some shots around the hotel.  The Driskill was beautifully decorated for Christmas.  Everyone had to get a shot of the big tree in the lobby!  Here is one of mine.  Naturally, this is an HDR shot.  It was created from 3 exposures at -2, 0, 2 EV.  Tripod in use, of course.

Aperture: 5.6
Bracketed exposure: 1/6, 0.6, 2.5 seconds
ISO: 100
Canon 30D, 18-55mm lens at 18mm