Explorer's Lounge

[rpcrowe]

I wish I can put my house in order to look like this too, but the doggies find the family room very inviting to the point that even right after I tidy it up, magically a ball or a pull toy will suddenly appear from somewhere with a doggie 'attached' to it at one end...

You too Izzie? And, I thought we were the only ones who suffer from doggie debris...

[bnnrcn]

Be careful,don't interfere in everthing:-)))

Thank you very much Binnur! Sometimes that 'curious mind' gets me in trouble though!

[Bobobird]

Very nice interior but probably made to look much better by your pic. Your knack for detail to show through is uncanny.

You asked if you can have one - yes you can. $$$$$ should do it.

[Brownbear]

Hi Frank,

Thank you so much for taking the time to share and explain all the details. Truly appreciated. All beyond my skill level but very helpful to know and learn from. Who knew that taking a photo of a room, a truly exquisite photo, could be so complicated.

Gorgeous image. Thank you.

Hi Christina, this is one of those situations where you can't fully believe the EXIF data. In the original shoot, I did a three shot bracketed exposure in Aperture Priority which I frequently do in low light situations. Almost all of my images are taken with available light.

The EXIF data was from the overexposed image of the three image set. The normal image of the set used a more sedate f/5.6, 1/10 sec., ISO-1600, no exposure bias, and max aperture 3.34375. The hard part was bracing the camera for three relatively slow shutter speed shots without the aid of a tripod.

The bracketed exposure bias of +2, 0 and -2 resulted in shutter speeds of 1/2 sec, 1/10 sec and 1/40 sec respectively.

In post processing I did noise reduction on all three images to compensate as best I could for the high ISO then aligned and wide-cropped before saving them for processing in Photomatix.

I used Photomatix to obtain a tonemapped composite using the “Natural” defaults to even out most of the dark shadow and blown highlight details. It is possible that Photomatix retained the overexposed EXIF data for the tonemapped output. This result had better tonal range and was very close to the Normal image in exposure but still had bits and pieces of issues in the shadow and highlight details that I wanted to correct.

Next I used the tonemapped “Natural” image as the base layer to blend in the shadow detail from the overexposed shot with adjusting the Brightness and Contrast of the overexposed shot to get the best shadow detail. I then blended in the blown–out light fixtures from the under exposed image, again adjusting the Brightness and Contrast of the under exposed image to get the best detail in the highlights.

The last step was to warm the image slightly, crop, sharpen for output and post.

It wasn’t as much that I choose Center Weighted Metering but rather didn’t bother to change it from what I normally use as the lighting in the room was relatively even in spite of the multitude of lighting sources involved.

Hope this helps!