Wow, feels good to be back in the digital darkroom!  I’ve been going through the shots that I took at Encanto Park in Phoenix this past Friday on my day off.  I had taken my tripod with me with the intention of getting some bracketed shots for HDR processing.  Unfortunately, as I was moving equipment from my travel backback to my daypack, I forgot to get the remote cable release out of the inner pocket of the backpack.  I decided to go ahead and shoot the bracketed shots anyway, just doing them handheld, trying my best not to move too much from side to side.  I was hoping that Photomatix could line them up for me.

And I think they actually came out pretty well!  Here are few samples:

All of these images were processed in Photomatix Pro from three bracketed photos (-2.0/0.0/+2.0), and then post-processed in Paintshop Pro.  Because these photos were all handheld, I used a setting in Photomatix that I don’t normally bother with, “Attempt to reduce ghosting artifacts > Moving objects/people > High”.  I also used the usual setting “Align source images > By correcting horizontal and vertical shifts”.  It did a great job of handling moving objects like ducks and maintenance vehicles that wouldn’t sit still for my photoshoot.  The fullsize versions (which look much better!) are available for viewing, along with more images from the series, on my Flickr site in the Encanto Park set.  I hope you’ll take a could of minutes to check them out and let me know what you think!

I’m just about finished with the bracketed shots, and will start working on the rest of the photos that I took.  Most of them are shots of the typical swans, ducks, geese and other such critters that you find in water features of parks such as this.  We’ll see how they turn out!