Daily Disney – Monday Method – Too Drunk and Tired to Remember

Daily Disney – Monday Method – Too Drunk and Tired to Remember

Image by Express Monorail
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On Mondays I share a picture that maybe takes a little technical know how or creative thinking and try to explain a little how I got the shot.

When HDR really makes sense.

The great Spanish Conquistador / photographer, Tom Bricker, once said "I have never seen an excellent night shot of this pavilion. Never. That doesn’t mean they’re not out there, I’ve just never seen one. There is too much dynamic range, and shots are always either too dark, suffer from many blown highlights, or have color issues. I was highly skeptical as to whether I could do it, but I think this 3 exposure shot captured most of the shadows without blowing too many of the highlights." Tom hit the nail right on the head.

As I stumbled along the World Showcase promenade past Mexico and towards the entrance to Future World (somewhat drunk, but mostly just pooped) I noticed the great Spanish Conquistador / photographer, Tom Bricker up on the steps of the Aztec pyramid setting up his tripod. Matt, Jeff, Don and I believe Sarah (I don’t remember, like I said, half drunk) had already made their way on to Future World probably scoring their epic shots of Spaceship Earth, but not Tom. Tom was bound and determined to conquer Mexico at night. And he did. You can see his outstanding "The Mexican Conquest" shot "here". The funny thing is, I don’t even really remember taking these exposures. I’m really surprised I even got three bracketed exposures off. Really surprised. My guess is that Tom was hogging the space in front of the pyramid so my only shot was this odd composition that at the time probably seemed interesting. A wide angle lens would have helped tremendously. I’m never going to Disney World without my UWA again!

So yeah, for a scene such as this, exposure bracketing coupled with HDR, or tone mapping, can really make the picture. Like Tom said, there is just too much dynamic range for a single exposure to capture. Scenes like this can really be deceiving because to the eye it doesn’t look like that much dynamic range. But as evident here, -1, 0, +1 (don’t ask me why I did that because honestly I have no idea… I usually expose 7 shots when doing HDR’s) wasn’t even enough.

I’m not done with this character – this Mexico pavilion. Oh no. We shall soon meet again.

Quick EXIF:
Camera: Nikon D300
Lens: Sigma 24-70mm f/2.8
Mode: Aperture Priority (EV bracketing 0, -1, +1)
Exposures: 4 sec, 2 sec, 8 sec
Aperture: f/5.6
Focal Length: 24mm (36mm full frame equivalent)
ISO: 100
Bias: N/A

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