Christmas 2012... with the old guard

[DonSchap]

I've been trying a strange approach with the Adobe Photoshop HDR tool.

Using the SONY a850 w/ the SIGMA 24-70 DG EX (IF) HSM lens:

• Using "Manual Focus", I de-focused the image at the widest aperture (f/2.8) to get the balloon bokeh of the lamps.
• I then get the correct zoom range readjusted for a constant-size of the subject in the image (the subject changes size with the focal length, when you use an "Internal Focus" lens - yeah, that kind of requires some work to maintain consistency. You need to do this so that the lamps stack properly.)
• Shoot it.
• Improve the focus a little better and adjust the zoom to maintain the subject's size, again.
• Shoot it.
• Focus to complete sharpness, adjust zoom for correct size
• Shoot it.

With these three images, you now have the basis for a "stacked" HDR, using identical exposures. You will need to "lie" to Photoshop, because it will detect this error and you will have to manually offset the setting of the images, just a tad (I used exposure time), to get them to combine. Once done... blur and adjust your background to soften it out. I found this exercise kind of fun to try and a lot more exciting than the typical tree shot. (Yes, I did fudge in the tree base blanket, from the sharply focused shot.)

"HAPPY HOLIDAYS!"