01/28/2016 David Horn Pictorial Intermediate

T his photo was taken at the Fountain Paint Pot area, Yellowstone National Park, in October 2015.

It was taken with a Sony alpha 6000 mirrorless camera, using a Leica 28mm/2.8 PC-Super Angulon prime lens.
One nice thing about the Sony E-Mount cameras is that you can mount just about any make of lens, using an inexpensive adaptor.
You lose auto-focus and image stabilization. But for serious photography you want to use a tripod anyway, and manual focus is easy and accurate.
The camera provides support for manual focus by providing a high degree of magnification of the image in the viewfinder.
The image was made from three exposures, bracketed with +/- 1-stop intervals, and HDR processed using Photomatix Pro software.
The resulting HDR 16-bit TIFF file was then further enhanced using Adobe Photoshop to optimize brightness, contrast, and color; remove a small piece of garbage and some annoying bright reflections; and darken the edges to draw attention to the main subject in the center.





About the Maker

David Horn

David Horn is a retired electronics engineer with a background in Physics. He was given his first box camera at the age of 8 or 9 and has been an enthusiastic amateur photographer ever since. He finds the technical aspects of photography come naturally, but has to struggle with the artistic aspects. He has been a member of photography clubs for over 35 years and finds the club an excellent place to learn and get inspiration, as well as to meet interesting people and have a lot of fun.

His main photographic interest is in landscapes and travel. He is essentially a traditional type of photographer, in that he likes to use post-processing just to enhance the original image, rather than create something totally new. Having said that, he enjoys experimenting with all sorts of new techniques, such as Giga-pans, high-speed and slow-speed exposures, video and time lapse. He has been doing 3D (stereoscopic) and Infra-Red photography for many years as well.

He is looking forward to buying a large 4K 3D TV as a prime display for digital photography as soon as the technology matures. Key requirements include: 1) AdobeRGB or better color gamut. 2) Calibration-capable. 3) Even illumination over a wide viewing angle. 4) Brightness can be turned down to a reasonable level for viewing photographic images (most TVs are far too bright). 5) Availability of a computer graphics adaptor capable of driving a 4K TV at 4K resolution in 3D at 60Hz (he searched and did not find a single one).