FAVORITE MOMENTS OF 2015

I've had the good fortune to participate in some epic photographic adventures in 2015. Here's a quick slideshow of some of my favorite moments of the past year.

Happy New Year everyone!

Mount Hood

Mount Hood on a January Dawn.

Twilight on the Ledge

San Diego Sunset Cliffs just after sunset. Waves coming over the rocks look like mist in long exposure.

Last Light

At the cliffs of San Diego

Tampa Bay Dawn

Ultra-hi-res Pano Merger

Death Valley Dunes

Ultra-Hi-Res Pano

Dawn at the Crater Rim

An ultra-hi-resolution, 270-degree panoramic merger of the crater rim at first light.

Entering the Blue Mosque

A couple enters the Blue Mosque in Isanbul at sunset.

Greek Umbrella Art

Stacey just after we learned of our pregnancy.

Our Windmill in Mykonos, Greece

One of my favorite places I've stayed.

Stromboli Smokes At Sunset

Volcanic smoke rises from Stromboli's crater as the sun sets over the sea.

Stromboli Erupts at Bluehour

Stromboli throws lava bombs and fire into the night sky above the sea below just after sunset.

The Amalfi Coast of Italy

Amalfi Dawn

Dawn rises over Atrani on the Amalfi Coast of Italy as chairs await beachgoers.

Notre Dame Sunset

The sun sets as a star beside Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, France.

Mont Saint Michelle Blue Hour (Ultra-Hi-Rez-Pano)

French Island Monastary refelcts in tidepool after sunset with blue clouds.

Paris Bastille Day

Milky Way and Smoke

Last summer's fires covered the Northwest in intense smoke.

A Special Blue

Steve canoes on the cobalt Waldo Lake.

Desert Trucks

Ultra-hi-res Pano Merger for a client in the Alvord.

Patagonian Sky

Torres del Paine, Chile

Glacier Grey

There’s nothing like seeing a massive glacier calving close up.

Stars over Lago Torre

Argentina

Dawn over Cerro Torre

Argentina

Fitz Roy Falls

I climbed up to these falls below Fitz Roy early one morning and was completely blown away. I'm used to scenic waterfalls in the Pacific Northwest, but this?

Patagonia Horse

How lucky is this horse?

Breakfast at Dawn

Andy at the crater rim of Mount St. Helens

PANORAMIC MERGER IN DEPTH: TORRES DEL PAINE, CHILE

View in HD: The depth and enlargeability of an ultra-hi-rez panoramic-merger.

Panoramic Mergers. I stumbled across the technique a decade ago when I was wishing for a wider angle lens for my medium format film camera.

On an amazingly calm Patagonian morning last month this scene could have been easily captured with a single frame with my Nikon D810, but by instead making a panoramic-merger from 8 images I created this highly-enlargeable, 80-megapixel image. Have I mentioned that I love this stuff?

Check out this gallery of select panoramic mergers. You can view this image full screen there.

NEW PRINTS AVAILABLE

I just posted some new images to the print gallery. Here are some new ones from Patagonia.

Creating a Print in the Studio

I'm so pleased to be shipping this 24 x 36" print off to Joe Del Grosso who submitted the winning bid in a charity auction benefiting survivors of Washington State's wildfires. Here's a timelapse of it's creation in the new studio space.

LIGHTROOM CC HDR

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I used Lightroom 6 to blend 3 exposures of this Image of Italy's Amalfi Coast.

I’m enjoying Lightroom 6 on this Europe trip. It’s dehaze filter has surprised me, and I’ve found the new panoramic photo-merge engine works well for many simple panoramics (stay tuned for more on that in my forthcoming panoramic merger book).

The new feature I like best is Lightroom 6’s built in merge to HDR. Finally an automated HDR solution for me. In the past I have avoided automated HDR software because the results were invariably too otherworldly for my style. I’ve been hand blending multiple exposures since the days of film, but I’m always seeking a subtle extension of shadow and highlight detail. A way to get the camera closer to my visual perception of the scene. Modern digital sensors are amazing, but they still can’t capture the dynamic range possible with our own eyes.

Now with Lightroom 6 you can blend bracketed RAW images like these three -- taken 2 stops above the meter, on the meter and 2 stops below the meter (I used my tripod to keep them all perfectly aligned) -- to create a single RAW image with dramatically increased shadow and highlight detail. It doesn't add any neon looking effect, halos or otherworldly colors. It simply opens the shadows and preserves highlights. 

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Three D810 RAW files 2-stops over, on meter, and 2-stops under.

To try this yourself, select some bracketed RAW images in Lightroom 6. Control-click (or right-click) on them. Choose "Photo Merge -> HDR." If you've used a tripod, you only need to Auto Tone, not Auto Allign. The Deghost controls are for objects moving within the scene between frames like a wave or people.

The result is a new RAW image to edit with insane dynamic range. Not only is this fun, it's changing the way I approach high contrast scenes.

-Hudson