Julia and I left for our vacation on Friday, September 25th. It certainly didn’t start out well: due to a light mist falling and runway construction, our flight to Milwaukee was canceled before we even arrived at the airport. Fortunately, we were rebooked onto a direct flight to Philadelphia, but it wouldn’t be leaving for several hours. After spending that time at Ike’s in the airport, and enduring several more delays, we finally boarded for the uneventful flight to Philly.

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• Current Mood: Relaxed

I took hundreds of photos during my recent trip out east, and as yet I haven’t had time to process them. So no vacation photos for now. It takes time to go through my workflow, and I’m still at the early stages. For those who are interested, my photo workflow is as follows:

1. Using a card reader, transfer the RAW files from the CF card to my 750 GB hard drive.
2. Geotag the RAW files using GeoSetter.
3. Import the RAW files into Adobe Lightroom.
4. Go through the photos and flag the obvious rejects.
5. Develop the RAW files, changing exposure, white balance, etc.
6. Label and caption the keepers in Lightroom.
7. Export the RAW files to JPG.
8. If necessary, make edits in GIMP, although this is a rarity these days.
9. Upload to my SmugMug site.

Last night I geotagged the files, so now I’m importing and making the first pass through them. Hopefully, before too long, I’ll have them up.

• Current Mood: Busy
• Currently Listening To: "Atom Heart Mother", Pink Floyd

I’ve been playing around with Qtpfsgui, the freeware HDR generator. I’ve tried Photomatix but didn’t care for it, plus it costs money. I’m all about free and open source. Through my experimentation, I’ve discovered an important revelation: 16-bit TIFF files are far, far better source images than 8-bit JPG. I was using 8-bit JPG files for my source at first, and was extremely disappointed in the results. Now that I’ve moved to TIFF, I find things to be a whole lot better. Images after the jump.

Here is an HDR image of downtown Minneapolis, using Mantiuk tonemapping. I like the way it turned out:

Here is a Mantiuk tonemap of the Mississippi River from the Franklin Avenue Bridge:

Here is the same scene, using the Fattal algorithm. Fattal is definitely less realistic than other HDR tonemapping algorithms, but it can create interesting results:

Now that I’ve discovered the best way to make them, I’ll probably keep creating HDR images. More can be seen here.

• Current Mood: Hungry
• Currently Listening To: "High and Dry", Radiohead
• Just Watched: About Schmidt

I took last Friday off, and instead of sleeping in like a normal person would do, I decided to get up as usual and instead take some photos just after daybreak. A couple hours after sunrise and a couple hours after sunset are the best times to take photographs, and Friday morning was no exception. Some samples after the break; the rest are here.

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• Current Mood: Headache

I took a few photos at Irish fest a couple of days ago at Harriet Island in Saint Paul. Not nearly as many as last year, as we were only there for a little bit. Plus, I just wasn’t feeling very inspired by what I saw. A couple photos after the jump.

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• Current Mood: Fine

I’ve posted photos from my trip to Colorado here. Some of my favorites below the fold…

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• Current Mood: Peckish

Now that I have internet again, I added a few pictures of the cats to my online gallery. A couple selections below the break.

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• Current Mood: Bah

Julia and I went to Grand Old Day on Sunday, 7 June 2009, with my brother and his girlfriend. Julia conveniently lives two blocks from Grand so it’s an easy place to get to. I took my camera and snapped a few shots here. Samples after the jump…

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I’ve put up new pictures of Julia’s cats here. Samples below the jump…

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• Current Mood: Sore
• Currently Listening To: "25 or 6 to 4", Chicago

This piece of software is a two-fer: it’s a computer utility for photographers! Most people these days know that you can “geotag” pictures; that is, add the precise location of where a picture is taken to its EXIF metadata, allowing you to see it on maps, Google Earth, etc. Unfortunately, unless you have a very expensive camera, an expensive camera add-on, or a lame iPhone, your camera probably can’t do this automatically. That’s where GeoSetter comes to the rescue.

GeoSetter uses a very simple Google Maps interface to allow you to add geotagging information to JPG, TIFF, or camera RAW files. Select the location on the map, click to add it to the photos, save, and done. It can even remember your favorite locations if you return to the same spots over and over. Of course, it’s free.

GeoSetter is obviously not as convenient as an automatic geotagging system, but it’s a great manual replacement.

• Current Mood: Grumpy
• Currently Listening To: "Dark and Long", Underworld