I mentioned in my blog about the barrel distortion that occurred with the Canon 16-35mm lens at 16mm.  I thought I would share an actual comparison photo.  I don't want to suggest that the 16 is bad.  But I would apply correcting software on any of the images as it makes them look truer and better.

So, if you can't "see" the distortion, here's an overlay.  I've put a black outline of the CORRECTED PHOTO on top of the uncorrected photo.  The red arrow shows where I lined everything up, and you'll notice that the verticals from the two photos differ as you move out from the center of that red arrow point.

It becomes really apparent in a mouseover example, but I don't think I can do that on AR.  If you look at the vertical lines around the fireplace in the first photo, you'll see that the fireplace looks more oval than rectangular.  I realize that I may be being picky, but I guess I look at photos a lot.

For correction software, I used the PTLENS photoshop filter which seems to do a good job.

Margaret Hokkanen, Carlsbad Real Estate

I've used a handheld remote trigger (with a wire) for a long time on my Canon 5d.  However, I am planning on buying the new Canon 5D back, and so I gave some thought to whether I might use my existing 5D back on my pole.  (Getting scary!)

I was VERY pleased to find that there are a number of 3rd party companies manufacturing radio/wireless triggers for Canon cameras.  Instead of paying $500 for the Canon unit, I got a simple two-stage trigger for $89 at Adorama, and the instructions say it will work up to 100 ft.

We still have not yet implemented any remote viewing capability on our camera, but I don't think we will need it as we've been doing it the "blind" method for years.  With the remote trigger, I'll be able to set the 5d on bracketed images and just push the trigger and can take 3 bracketed images so that I can do high dynamic range pole photos!

Once I take some images, I'll try to post them.  I've also make some changes to the pole to make things a lot safer for the expensive camera body, and I'll try to take a picture and show those too.

Here's the most recent pole photo with the cheapo camera that we use.  I can't wait to see what my old 5d with some high dynamic images will take!

Margaret Hokkanen, Carlsbad Real Estate

The day Canon announced the upcoming release of the Canon 5d Mark II camera body (the new 5d body), we decided to purchase the Canon 14mm lens.  We love our 28mm tilt/shift lens, but the processing time for doing high dynamic range photos was simply too much.  By moving to the 14mm lens, there is 1/3 of the work because there are fewer images. 

Here's an example from the 14mm lens on the current 5d back.  This is a blended strobe/high dynamic range photo.  As we have continued to do this, our understanding of how to create these images has gotten better and better.

What I like about this lens is that the lines are kept straight - VERY little distortion.  Quite amazing, really.  However, I've read comparisons with the Nikon 12-24, and that lens is apparently brighter and more vivid.  This is less of a concern for us since we are doing overlays with a highly saturated high dynamic range image.  Plus, with the new 5D back, I could keep all of my old lenses and get a big jump in resolution. Overall, I think the image makes the living room look pretty nice.

The week before I found out about the new 5D and bought the lens I rented Canon's 16-35mm lens for a photo shoot.  Here's a photo at 16mm.  This was a nice lens, but, here's a word of CAUTION.  There is a LOT of barrel distortion going on with this lens.  We HAD to use our correcting software (Ptlens) to remove the barrel distortion as that improved the images a LOT.

How about those reflections in the granite!  That's what the HDR blending will give you.

Finally, I should note WHY the new 5D back was the decision to change.  The new 5D is 22 megapixels.  That means that we will get the same 20 megapixel image with the 14mm lens that we've been getting with the tilt/shift lens, and we have about 1/3 of the post-processing work.  So, for us, it was worth the $2100 that we spent. 

I'm not getting rid of the tilt/shift lens.  I plan to use it when I need to create a giant-sized image (which we sometimes create as posters inside listings).  With the new 5d back and the tilt/shift lens, I'll be able to create a 40 megapixel image, which is in the range of the current generation of Hasselblad cameras.  Again, the post-processing time will increase, but that's OK as long as I'm not doing it with every single image.

All the best.

Margaret Hokkanen, Encinitas and Carlsbad Real Estate

Our team has a new horse property in Bonsall that is FABULOUS.  Here are the photos:

Aerial view showing paddock, corral, home, pool, etc.

Living Room with lodgelike fireplace.

Interested in seeing the home?  Call Heather Foster, the listing agent for this home, at 619-665-2782.  The home has 3 bedrooms plus an office.  The home is offered at $1,100,000 to $1,200,000.  For more details, plus the virtual tour, see our Bonsall/Fallbrook web site at http://www.FallbrookTeam.com.

Margaret Hokkanen

Casa Bella Realty and Mortgage

Here's our team's newest listing.  This property is ON THE SAND with spectacular whitewater views.  I'll let the pictures speak for themselves.

Living Room

Master Bedroom

View of the beach and the Oceanside Pier from the deck of the home.

Price: $4.975M.  Eight Bedrooms, about 3880 sq. ft.

To see all the info about the property, visit http://www.OceansideVista.com.  It's under the featured listings.

Represented by Yvonne Lillo (760) 271-3277 of the SurfTheTurf.com Team. Call her if you would like to make an appointment to see the property.  The home is remodeled and clean, and the views are as good as the pictures show.

Casa Bella Realty and Mortgage

We've made a number of posts about utilizing HDR images, and we have finally settled on using HDR to supplement a solid traditional exposure.  This allows us to highlight just those elements of the room that we want to highlight, yielding a more 3-d effect because of the interaction of the HDR images with the traditional exposure.  Some may prefer a complete edge-to-edge HDR image, but we prefer the saturated realism of our approach.  Anyway, let me give an example; first the comparison image.  On the left is a properly exposed image of a dining room.  On the right is the final image that we are seeking to create.

First, the base image.  This uses strobe umbrellas (quite powerful), but nothing else.  One exposure.  In the past, this is the image that we would have used without any question that it was a fine image. However, now using HDR, we are able to improve upon it.

Then, we layer the following HDR image underneath the base image.  Here's the HDR exposure.

As you see, the HDR image has gray ceilings and gray walls.  The carpet is also a bit muddy.  This is why we don't want to use edge-to-edge HDR images.  Plus, the local contrast adaptation applied to the entire picture can make things look a bit surreal.  However, the wood tones are excellent.  Notice that event the distant billiard table looks great.  So, with the Flash photo layered on top, we meticulously erase (not 100%) the top image to reveal the parts of the HDR image that we want to reveal.  We don't use a 100% eraser because we want the blending to look natural and undetectable.  Here's the combined image:

Things are looking pretty good.  But we still have the window in the distance.  So, we really knocked down the exposure and took another HDR set with a greatly reduced exposure.  Then we just cut out the window part.  Again, I put the HDR image underneath the combined image, but to explain, I just did a screen capture with it on top so you can see just how dark we had to make the image to reveal the window.

Pretty dark, isn't it?  Then we zoom in a LOT and meticulously erase just the window part on the top image (not the lamps or any of the black part) to reveal just the window.  The Result is the final, blended image, which is sharpened using the Smart Sharpen filter in Photoshop to get back a little of the crispness that is lost with the HDR image.

I think the final image has a lot of great mood to it, and with the window and mountains visible beyond that, the photo shows the depth of the home.  This is one of our favorite photos for showing the power of this technique.  I hope this helps you understand our approach.  It's a bit time consuming, but the results are what we want.

Margaret Hokkanen, Encinitas and Carlsbad Real Estate

Sorry I've been absent, but we've been busy.  I've had a few comments lately on some of the HDR posts, so I thought I would post some recent images that I created for consideration.

THESE WERE HARD TO TAKE.  This is a beach house right on the sand in Oceanside, CA.  I had to wait until a very clear day when there wasn't so much humidity in the air (i.e., NO cloud cover).  Consequently, the outside light was HOT HOT HOT.  The difference between inside and outside is large even on a cloudy day in a neighborhood with grass and trees.  But on the sand next to the water, the amount of light bouncing around outside is RIDICULOUS.  I had never shot a home in this setting, and if you haven't done it, get prepared for some post-processing work!  Even my HDR images were having all sorts of issues because the light differential was so large, and, hence, I have concluded that post-processing HDR images in this kind of environment takes some practice.

Anyway, here are some images for your consideration.  I'll put some additional comments below them.  I should note that the goal of this photo shoot was to create images that gave the lovely, bright interiors that you get at the beach.  This is why this was difficult.  The outside was white hot, driving the interiors toward black (relatively speaking).  I need to have really bright interiors that convey what you see when you are inside the home AND I needed to show the view as well.  This took some time to get the results below.

These are blended HDR images like the ones that I've previously posted.  I use high-powered flashes and umbrella stands to take the base image, and then I layer the HDR images on top of the base image.  This results in good-looking walls, ceilings, carpet, etc. that is not subject to the local adaptation rules of the HDR.  Then, by layering other components on top (whether sofa, counters, windows, etc.), I can "paint" in exactly the HDR look that I want to achieve.  For me, it's the best of both worlds...allowing traditional exposure control with the base image, but getting the richness and color saturation of HDR. 

The windows/views were as good as I could make them.  The EXTREME light differential is what makes this type of photography such a challenge.

What do you think?  Any comments are appreciated.

Margaret Hokkanen, Encinitas/Carlsbad Real Estate

PS: To see the details of the home, just visit www.OceansideVista.com.  The home is priced at almost $5M.

(Note on 7/19/08: I've also posted some images that were extremely difficult to create on my new post at http://activerain.com/blogsview/600282/HDR-Interiors-on-the which you may also want to review.)

I apologize for our absence of late.  I thought I would share some our newest marketing images because they show how we've changed our photographic work.  In the past, we took multiple exposures of a room and John blended those images in photoshop to achieve a blended image.  We have now moved to an approach where we combine non-HDR/strobe photography with high dynamic range photography.  We like this a lot for a few reasons:

Our experience with HDR processing (maybe just OUR HDR processing) is that it can lead to a number of issues:

1) A case of the "flats."  The exposure value range is all there and it's been compressed, but in the process everything is thrown to the middle of the range.  The whites are grey, and so are the blacks.

2) Depending upon the local contrast settings, some HDR images can just look weird as they come out of the processor.

However, that said, HDR definitely allows for a beautiful way of expressing reflections, sunlight, and, as we have found, can give richer color expression because of the gradations than traditional photos.  But we still like to have our whites white and our blacks black (less critical than the whites), and this is particularly true of walls and ceilings.  To accomplish this, we photograph the room with our strobes getting a well-balanced exposure of a room.  Then, we turn the strobes off and take the same photo again, this time bracketing it for HDR processing; we then create a second HDR image.  The original image is then overlaid on top of the HDR image, and then the original is carefully erased (sometimes only 10-20%, sometimes up to 100%) in places where we want the HDR image to enrich the original image. 

For those of you who haven't read my posts before, here's the equipment I'm using: Canon 5d, with a 24mm tilt/shift lens, multiple 580exII strobes on umbrella stands.  Photomatix for HDR processing.  Because I use a tilt-shift lens rather than a wide-angle lens, it increases the processing, but improves the size of the image (to over 20megapixels), and we also like the proportions of the image (less stretched).

Here are some images (these are all 20megapixel images, though the ones supplied here have been shrunk for ease of viewing).  If you want to see how these look in print, email me and I'll try to mail you a brochure or two.

Anyway, I hope you liked the images.  We think they really help express the character of the rooms for what they are.  If you have an interest in understanding what I did to capture these images, don't hesitate to post a message explaining your interest.  If there is interest, I'll try to give some explanation as to the compositional aspects of the photographs.

Margaret Hokkanen, Encinitas and Carlsbad Real Estate

Real Estate Listing Detail for 2704 Phillips Park Court, Winter Park, FL 32789

Offered by The Hood Group, Inc.

2704 Phillips Park Court, Winter Park, FL 32789 MLS #: O4841551 Offered at $995,000 Bedrooms 4 (2 up, 2 down)     Full Baths: 3 Half Baths 1 Lot Size (Acres): 0.2984 Lot Size (SqFt): 12998 Pool (Home): YES! Sq Ft Heated: 3582 Year Built: 1997     A luxury, custom-built home in a small enclave of homes. Ideal floor plan featuring two bedrooms downstairs, two bedrooms upstairs, a separate office area and a hugh bonus room. Storage galore!!! Directions: Winter Park Road, then east on Phillips Park Ct. Open House: To be determined, but easy see - just call (760) 246-1888.

Tania Hood, Broker (760) 246-1888

Description: Observe the true value in this luxury, master custom built home in a small enclave of a prestigious Winter Park community. Walk to Leu Gardens, shopping, schools, and shops. Ideal floor plan with hugh bonus room and separate office area. Tour this custom home built by Groninger Custom Homes and meticously maintained by one owner. Upon entering the impressive foyer the adirondack Ash hardwood flooring (2 years old) gleams throughout the first floor. Each spacious room is perfectly planned with high ceilings for an open an airy feeling, some crown molding and artistic ceilings. The owners' suite has a sitting area with a view of the lush pool area. The master bath has a large shower with 2 shower heads. Another suite is located downstairs with private pool access bath. The family room has built-ins and large windows to view the backyard. The kitchen has stunning granite, light maple cabinets, walk-in pantry. Four double french doors sets open to pool/patio and covered porch with skylights! The upstairs offers an office area leading to two large bedroom and an additional bonus room that offers endless storage and two large closets. The bonus room has its own switch for the AC for efficiency. There is abundant storage throughout; the attic has easy access, is floored and has double insulation. The home has manifold plumbing, 160' deep well for irrigation and AC; AC heat recovery for heating hot water. A lushly landscaped yard has mature trees, self watering window boxes and is fenced for privacy.

This is a repost of a prior article so that I can put it into the HDR repository which the AR system isn't letting me do right now.

Boy have I been confused a bit about this High Dynamic Range merging stuff.  I've been reading my new book, "The HDRI Handbook," and I now am beginning to get a handle on why the HDR images can look so, so good.  But I thought I would share some of my confusion because I thought that maybe someone else was similarly confused.

I've been playing with Photoshop's Merge to HDR where I converge 5 or more images into a single high dynamic range image (32 bits).  Well, they always looked muddy to me.  Here's my most recent example:

It sort of looks ok, and it has the full range, but everything looks muddy to me.  THEN earlier today I read about TONE MAPPING where you use some fancy tools to compress the entire range into an 8 bit per channel (i.e., JPG) output.  Here's what I got when I did that!

For those interested, I downloaded a tool called Photomatix from http://www.hdrsoft.com/.  It's a complicated program with an easy interface (i.e., slide the sliders, but that doesn't mean that you know what you're doing, but I'm only getting started on this).

Now, maybe I amped up the saturation just a bit in my excitement, but this is looking interesting!  I need to learn how to use the tools, but I can see why people are excited about this stuff now.

Also, I learned the name for the kind of photography that we've been doing....it's called "Exposure Blending" where you take multiple exposures and blend them together to get an end result image that is the kind that you get with high dynamic range.  For me to create this image took me only 15 minutes.   It would have taken much more work than that to do it the way that I usually assemble the photograph.

Margaret Hokkanen, Encinitas Real Estate