Venice – heath ofee dot com

Espresso

Heath OFee — Mon, 11 Apr 2011 13:10:10 +0000

I have such great memories from my time in Venice, and one of the best was the morning of our arrival. We took an overnight train from Rome to Venice and arrived in the city just before sunrise. That morning, we basically had the place to ourselves. Nothing was open yet and the streets and alleys were silent and deserted…it was such a peaceful few hours.

When the cafes finally started to open, we stopped at the first one we could find for a quick breakfast and an espresso. This shot of my (at the time) girlfriend (now my wife) really captures the feeling we had both had that morning. Beautiful light and empty streets in one of the most unique cities in the world.

Canon EOS 50D, Canon EF 24-105mm f/4.0L, 45mm, F 5.6, ISO 100, 1/50 sec

Grand Canal

Heath OFee — Fri, 08 Apr 2011 13:10:27 +0000

Back to the Italy archives for today’s image.

I’m sure I’ve said this before, but Venice is by far one of the coolest cities I’ve ever had the pleasure of visiting. There are so many streets and alleys to explore, and you never know what you’ll find around the next bend. If you haven’t been, you should put Venice on your must see list.

Although I still love processing HDR photographs (and probably always will), lately I’ve been finding a lot of enjoyment in processing single exposures. There are many times when the limited dynamic range of a camera can make a scene more compelling than if the full range of light were exploited. If you’re an HDR enthusiast, experiment with two versions of an image: one tonemapped from a set of brackets and one single exposure from the set. See if all that dynamic range is really necessary to convey your photographic message. It’s easy to fall into the trap of shooting brackets and processing for HDR all the time…make sure you inspect your bracket sets before tonemapping to really see if you need to expand the dynamic range.

Don’t be afraid to try new (or old) things, it’s good for you, and you may just fall in love with this wonderful hobby all over again.

Canon EOS 50D, Canon EF 24-105mm f/4.0L, 24mm, F 7.1, ISO 100, 1/320 sec

Green Beer

Heath OFee — Fri, 07 Jan 2011 14:18:04 +0000

Last night I decided to take a look through my photo archives to see if I could find anything worth a second look. I’ve said this before, but I think this is a valuable exercise as it not only allows you to see the progression you’ve made behind the camera, but also allows you to showcase some of the new post processing skills you may have developed.

This shot is from my trip to Italy in May of 2009. We spent most of our time in the Tuscan region, but did manage to get to Rome, Venice and Florence for at least a day each. Our time in Venice was probably one of the highlights of the trip. It is such a unique city, and there are almost boundless photo opportunities. The shot below is a very simple composition, but the empty bottle of Heineken on the window sill adds just enough to the frame to make it interesting for me.

Since I wasn’t shooting brackets for HDR during my time in Italy, this is just a single image tonemapped in Photomatix to really bring out the texture. I then brought it into onOne’s Phototools for a few global adjustments and some selective warming and cooling. I finished it off with some selective application of the Midnight filter in Nik Color Efex Pro.

Canon EOS 50D, Canon EF 24-105mm f/4.0L, 32mm, F 7.1, ISO 100

St. Mark’s Square by Night

Heath OFee — Tue, 28 Sep 2010 16:07:49 +0000

When I first stumbled upon HDR early this year, I didn’t jump straight on the Photomatix train, I actually tried out a Lightroom plugin called Enblend/Enfuse. I spent quite a bit of time going through some of my old RAW files, splitting them into 3 pseudo-brackets and running them through this plugin. Some of the results I achieved were actually quite good considering I was working with single RAW files. I rarely use this plugin anymore as Photomatix is my go-to HDR creation/tonemapping software, but today I’m going to share one of the images I processed using this plugin.

This is a shot from the brief time I spent in Venice during my visit to Italy last year. I was in absolute wonderment the entire time I was there…I couldn’t even believe a city like Venice could exist and there were unbelievable photo opportunities around every corner and along every tiny, cobbled street. Getting lost in Venice was probably the most fun I had on my Italy trip. Weaving through the shaded streets and then stumbling out into one of the countless squares was a joy. I’d love to go back one day.

Canon EOS 50D, Canon EF 24-105mm f/4.0L, 24mm, F 11, ISO 100, 10sec

Cafe Tables

Heath OFee — Sun, 05 Sep 2010 22:17:45 +0000

I spent a bit of time going through my photos from Italy again last night. Seeing all of the wonderful history really makes me ready for another European vacation, although I’m not sure that’s going to happen any time soon (it’s on my list though!).

One thing I’ve noticed going back through these photos is how different my style of photography was a year ago. Interestingly enough, I think it mostly has to do with the lenses I had in my bag at that point in time…a 24-105L and a 70-200L. For most of the trip I had my trusty 24-105 glued to my 50D, and I think that lens really helped shape what kind of shots I was able to get in Italy. Since then I’ve sold my 70-200L and bought a Sigma 10-20mm…the latter is what I shoot with most often now and I know it’s had a big impact on my style of photography. What are your thoughts…has the gear in your bag ever changed your style of photography?

Canon EOS 50D, Canon EF 24-105mm f/4.0L, 24mm, F 4.0, ISO 100, 1/200 sec