For once, Vancouver was forecast to get snow, and snow arrived! About three to four inches fell overnight and continued on through the morning.
With rain forecast in the afternoon, I knew my best chance would be to set the alarm to go off well before sunrise, so at 5:30 I struggled out of bed and headed out.
I walked over to Gastown, passing a few cars that managed to get stuck in the conditions, although in general there was very little traffic, even for that time in the morning. The snow was still falling in tiny flakes that sting your eyes.
This is Abbott Street in Gastown, taken from Water Street just before 7:00am this morning. With the fine flakes of snow blowing all around in the wind, keeping the front of the lens clear of snow in these conditions was driving me crazy!
7 shot HDR image at ISO 400, f/11, with exposure times ranging from 1/100th of a second to 10 seconds.
Worth viewing large! Thanks to everyone for the amazing response on my last few photos!
I'm a British software developer and photographer living in Vancouver, BC. I mainly photograph landscapes, cityscapes, night scenes, and water.
If you're interested in any...
Wow stunning shot! Wonderful detail! Love the processing! Hadn't realized you could use more than 3 bracketed images for HDR. Only just started! Need to find out more! Love this! Fav!
Beautiful! It's not doing much of anything at our house now but we were just further above sea level and it was still a blizzard! I just love the snow. The kids got the day off school!
It's beautiful Alexis, well worth getting up for, haven't tried HDR yet, I'm considering getting Nik Silver Efex pro as I think it's in that package plus i'm enjoying a spell of B&W at the mo, although I hear people mention Photomatrix, any advice?
Such a beautiful seasonal shot and a fantastic composition. I so love seeing your Vancouver shots - it kind of links me with my family over there. Fav.
@pamknowler Thanks! Most HDR software will accept any number of photos, but most cameras can only automatically bracket three shots. Newer cameras in the Canon range allow you to select between 2, 3, 5 and 7 shots when bracketing is enabled, which is very useful for HDR work.
You can still take more than three shots for an HDR photo with any camera, but you'll need to do so manually, either by altering the exposure directly in manual mode, or by adjusting the exposure compensation. Of course, this is more time-consuming and prone to error -- in this photo, I had to take this sequence five or six times to get a full set of shots without any water droplets from snow on the lens, and being able to wipe the lens down and immediately hit the shutter release to take the series of shots as quickly as possible was very useful.
@jo13 Thank you! If you buy the Nik collection (which I think is all that's available since Google bought them out) then you'll get HDR Efex Pro as part of that, which is Nik's HDR package. I don't have any direct experience with it, but it is a well-regarded HDR package.
One of the benefits of Photomatix is that it is by far the most widely used HDR package. This means you get what might be called the 'Photoshop effect' -- there are lots of editing packages like Photoshop, but Photoshop is so widely used that it's far easier to find tutorials, settings, and help for Photoshop than for other packages. The same can be said for Photomatix -- there's a lot more guides on using it, downloadable presets, and so on, than there is for HDR Efex, because it's a more popular package. This can be useful when learning -- while HDR Efex can probably do just as good a job, learning how to get to that point if you're not already familiar with HDR may be harder.
However, if you are already planning on getting Silver Efex Pro, which is definitely an excellent purchase for any B&W work, then you might as well try HDR Efex as well and see how you get on with it, before deciding whether to spend more money on Photomatix.
@abirkill Wonderful advice as usual, always trying to run before I can walk, as you say see what it's like with Silver Efex and decide from there, thank you.
I am now a fan and following you. One because your shots are gorgeous and Two because I am from Vancouver. I live in Venice CA. this way I can see my "home" P.S. gorgeous shot!
Congratulations on a double Top Twenty! There is a hypnotic feeling when walking the streets of a town at night with the streets covered in snow. You managed to capture that feeling very well!
I could just sit here and click into each photo, and go ahead and hit fav. They are ALL gorgeous. The "world of Alexis" is somehow COLD but in a warm and cozy and glowing way! I read my students a book about Santa's evil twin...it's by horror writer ( but for kids...black comedy) Dean Koontz..and written in Dr. Suess couplet style. But when the kids arrive at the north pole, to save the real santa, they comment that there are buckets with taps on the side of free rootbeer, free movie theaters, where movies are always playing, and things like that. My students always get so excited by the thought of that. Your "World" like in this shot..reminds me of that "childlike,wonderful, perfect North Pole."
January 7th, 2014
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it reminds me of the main street in the movie, It's a Wonderful Life.
You can still take more than three shots for an HDR photo with any camera, but you'll need to do so manually, either by altering the exposure directly in manual mode, or by adjusting the exposure compensation. Of course, this is more time-consuming and prone to error -- in this photo, I had to take this sequence five or six times to get a full set of shots without any water droplets from snow on the lens, and being able to wipe the lens down and immediately hit the shutter release to take the series of shots as quickly as possible was very useful.
@jo13 Thank you! If you buy the Nik collection (which I think is all that's available since Google bought them out) then you'll get HDR Efex Pro as part of that, which is Nik's HDR package. I don't have any direct experience with it, but it is a well-regarded HDR package.
One of the benefits of Photomatix is that it is by far the most widely used HDR package. This means you get what might be called the 'Photoshop effect' -- there are lots of editing packages like Photoshop, but Photoshop is so widely used that it's far easier to find tutorials, settings, and help for Photoshop than for other packages. The same can be said for Photomatix -- there's a lot more guides on using it, downloadable presets, and so on, than there is for HDR Efex, because it's a more popular package. This can be useful when learning -- while HDR Efex can probably do just as good a job, learning how to get to that point if you're not already familiar with HDR may be harder.
However, if you are already planning on getting Silver Efex Pro, which is definitely an excellent purchase for any B&W work, then you might as well try HDR Efex as well and see how you get on with it, before deciding whether to spend more money on Photomatix.