Criticism

Interesting response to yesterday's Unsubtle Play with HDR, when I went to bed last night it had accumulated two favourites and fourteen comments ranging from "beautiful" to "modern, acrylic made in China painting". This morning five further comments all very positive.

In my previous life as a software writer / designer I came across various examples of people writing really clever programs, but missing the point completely that the program has to be used by someone who's got no interest in the cleverness of the program, just wants a program that's easy and efficient to use. I actually feel I may be guilty of falling into the "hey look at me trap, see how clever I can be". There again we're moving into the area of "art" now, and we all know there's some really dire stuff out there passing itself off as "art", the trouble is the person standing next to you is really admiring this "dire stuff" and that's what makes the world an interesting place.

A lot of the commentators expressed an interest in what HDR was and on seeing the original shot. With HDR there isn't actually an "original shot". There's an option on my camera that allows me to take three shots at a time. One being (up to) two stops under exposed, one being (up to) two stops over exposed and the third as a standard exposure. The HDR process then takes the best bits from each of those shots and merges them together. A bright sky would therefore mainly come from the under exposed shot, darker areas (like under the bridge) would mainly come from the over exposed shot and the end result should look like what your eye and brain imagine they're viewing, except of course when you throw in one of the less subtle processes like Grunge.

I've added a new category to my Blipfolio - HDR. In there are the original shots, over / under / normal exposure, plus what you get when they're merged with no added effects and merged with the grunge effect. I've also put in normal / merged / grunge shots for three other HDR sets I took yesterday. Comment away - please.

Today's shot is of our latest visitor to our bird feeders. Since installing them our list of visitors is: Robin, Blackbird, Siskin, Lesser Redpoll, Great Tit, Blue Tit, Coal Tit, Chaffinch & Grey Squirrel - I'll let you work out which is the latest - pictured in the silver birch just outside the flat, which is not only a good source of food in itself, but acts as a queuing station for waiting your turn on the feeders.

Pretty in Large.