The NAR conference is in San Diego next week, and we thought we would touch base to see if anyone from the photography group was headed out here. My husband John and I live about 25 minutes north of downtown San Diego, and we plan to attend.
John said he was willing to demo his pole camera rig or other camera setup if anyone had an interest.
Let us know if you're coming! We'd be glad to meet up with some of the other people interested in photography (HDR, pole/aerial, etc.) or marketing.
Here's our recent listing in Encinitas Highlands in Encinitas, California. It is a super-cute beach home near the downtown, and it's a quick walk to the beach. It's also just a quick walk to restaurants, the movie theatre, and the brand new Encinitas library. We sent out about 15,000 brochures, so most people in Encinitas know about the home. I'm posting it here just in case someone from out of town has an interest.
Address: 627 Cornish Ave., Encinitas, CA 92024
Particulars: 3 beds, 1 bath, 1284 sq. ft., lot is over 9500 sq. ft.
Our practice has been hectic here in San Diego which is why I haven't posted for a while. Anyway, I wanted to share some of our latest pole photography and high dynamic range blending photos. The home is a little beach cottage across from the library, and not far from the ocean. However, it doesn't have ocean view. So, it was important that we show how close the home was to the water (walk to beach). We also need to present the home in a nice way since it is an Encinitas beach cottage.
First, the front view of the home. We put our Canon 5d with 24mm tilt/shift lens on our pole rig, and it was up about 12 ft off the ground. But the street was also a few feet higher than the front door, so the camera was actually up a bit higher. This is a nice pole shot because it leads into the back yard photo (later in the brochure) of the large back yard. For this photo, it's just important to see the trees and the depth behind the house of where the trees are. Also, this is the cover of the brochure. I wanted to show you the cover so that you could see the fun little map that I created so that we could present how close the home was to all the action and the water.
As we turn to the interior, we have a blended HDR photo of the living room. Two sets of images were taken to create this photo. A color-balanced strobe image which gave a great backdrop, and an HDR image with some local contrast and saturation amped up to really make the picture pop and give it a 3d effect.
Next we have another interior shot (I picked one of the kid's bedrooms). The technique is similar to the living room.
Finally, I wanted to show another pole photo. This is the library just a few doors away. The back patio of the library has ocean view, and I really cranked up the camera pretty high (25 ft) to get this photo. But, it really does show you how close you are to the ocean.
Anyway, I hope those are some fun photos. Feel free to post any questions and I will try to reply quickly.
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.
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!
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
This blog discusses Carlsbad and Encinitas real estate, provides market updates and info for consumers, and just some general fun. See www.EncinitasCarlsbad.com for more.
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