Project 365 Day 45 - 30/9/13

Yesterday morning I got up pretty early with my brother to go up St Catherine's Hill in Winchester to try and get some shots of the dawn light. We were both bracketing our shots to do some HDR in post. I decided tonight to see if there was an HDR app for ipad and have been pleasantly surprised with the results I've gotten.

I used TrueHDR which cost £1.49 which is worth it for the quality of the results but it would be a better deal at 69p as there are some minor issues.

Here are some of the results :)

Out shooting I was bracketing 3 exposures but TrueHDR only uses 2 for each composite so I picked my darkest and lightest shots to merge. There is a brightness slider which works well and the above shot could have used a bit more. For these images I have only used the natural mode but there is a Vivid mode that offers more extreme settings.

After using TrueHDR I used PhotoPal to do a bit of sharpening and in the above shot I did need it to pull out the shadows on the tree. TrueHDR would feel more like a complete package if it had effective shadow and highlight control but considering it takes about 20 seconds to process and get results as pleasing as these I'll save using photoshop for when I really need the added control.

In this last composite the branch on the right is ghosting where TrueHDR didn't line up the shots properly, this is probably due to wind but there is no way in app to correct or adjust this. The last little thing that I think would improve the app is being able to use it in landscape orientation.

Here are some in app views...

4 adjustment sliders are available to you for adjusting your HDR composite...

Instagram style effects can be applied but other than the black and white setting they are very harsh and be done more effectively in other apps.

Overall I was amazed an ipad app could do HDR composites this well and it feels to me like an ipad could be all a photographer needs in the near future, it would be great to put all the editing feature you'd ever need into one app but it would take a really good developer to make a solid app that could rival photoshop.

Some bonus shots from up the hill...

Project 365 Day 44 - 28/9/13

Found this on my phone, think it was in Gatwick airport...

Project 365 Day 43 - 26/09/13

After work today I went for a walk with my camera, no tripod or extra kit. I was trying to 'get the shot' in camera, aiming to get as balanced an exposure without bracketing and photoshop.

I tried using PhotoPal on my ipad to pull out the shadows but even with RAW files it didn't cope as well I hoped...

Project 365 Day 42 - 22/9/13

Been a dry week for photography opportunities, this made me chuckle though...

Project 365 Day 41 - 17/9/13

This morning while I was getting ready for work I saw how red the sky was out the back of my house, poked my camera out the window and boom...

It was a shame I was getting ready for work and not off for a landscape shoot...

Project 365 Day 40 - 15/9/13

Surprise surprise, today's picture is of... a cat...

I saw Chewie sat on the windowsill looking outside as if he was waiting for the rain to stop and grabbed my camera. Initially I tried using flash as the room was dark but the results weren't great. I switched to manual, turned the flash off and set my shutter speed to 1/30 to keep things sharp in the dim light, which would under expose the shot but it worked out looking nicer and balancing the light from outside with that in the room, a touch of editing on my iPad added...

and just for lols here's one of Chewie yawning...

Rawrrr....

Project 365 Day 39 - 14/9/13

I've decided to stop worrying if I miss a day here or there, it's not the end of the world. Next week I want to try and make one of my photos really push my abilities technically and creatively as a photographer but until that day comes here's a picture of a cat :)