I tried my hand at manual HDR photography tonight, and I have to laugh – I failed miserably. It’s the tonal imaging that’s tough. I’ll get it. And that’s how we learn – a few failures, a few “ah-ha!” moments, and we learn. Still, I am not going to post tonight’s work. Ugh.

Yes, there are multiple ways to use Photoshop to do this kind of work automagically, but I want to learn how to do it myself first, then have the skills to tweak auto-HDR. For the same reason I enjoyed learning photography from behind the lens of an all manual Pentax K-1000 camera, I’d like to learn how to make HDR myself. Then I know what’s going on; then I know how to tweak for better performance. And I blew it tonight. Tomorrow? I’ll make it work. Seriously.

So it’s one from the archives tonight. This shot comes from alongside the river in Kyoto. Sunset light is beautiful – the camera captures the sideways light, and photos look magic. Also, I like playing with depth of field in tight shots.

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