From the Attic Window

eoren1

...of a 150 year old building :wink
Went out today to shoot a stained glass window in our town's main building prior to its dismantling and repair. Turned out I was two weeks too late. I did befriend a caretaker of the building and was invited up to the attic to explore. I was treated to a little seen and awesome vantage point. Here are two image from my brief time up there.





Each is an HDR - 9 exposures at 1EV steps processed in Photomatix and tweaked with OnOne Photo Tools
Appreciate any thoughts.
E

schmoo

Amazing HDR work! This is exactly the kind of image I always try to take but it never comes out looking right. Talk about a completely natural look in an extremely difficult lighting situation.

eoren1

Thanks Schmoo!
This was tough for a number of reasons - dynamic range was HUGE (exposures went from 4sec to 1/100 by 1EV). And I had random flare spots throughout the shot that showed on those 4 and 2 sec exposures. After Photomatix, I brought it into CS5 and used the brilliant content aware healing brush to fix that part. I have been finding really good success from running the tiff files from Photomatix through OnOne's Photo Tools 2.6 - I tend to use Magic Landscape and 'fade' each variable to taste.
E

hawkeye978

Like #2, E. Nice brick details. Do you think darkening the sky would bring some more interest?

eoren1

Thanks Tom. The sky sucked! It was much brighter than it appears (ie - this is the darkened version)
Wish I could have shot this under better conditions but not sure that I'll have the opportunity again...
Appreciate the comments and suggestions.
E