The Kansas State University Olathe campus is closed tomorrow because of the weather, still not sure if the campus here in Manhattan will be open or not. I’m guessing it will be business as usual. Last week we got hit pretty good, maybe 7-8 inches of snow, not the 12-15 I was expecting and kinda hoping for, but I didn’t waste what “little” we had. It started out as just a small group of us friends throwing snowballs at each other but it morphed into this epic snowball fight with like 20 people! It was a lot of fun.
Anyway, with all this snowy weather we’re having, I decided to post this image. I actually took this back in January. I think I was on my way to class or on my way to the office. I was carrying my camera, using my Carry Speed Strap, so it was handy and easy to get to. I take my camera with me everyday, but I usually have it in my bag, and I’ve found that unless I have it out of the bag, even if I have it with me all the time, I’m not going to take more photos. That’s why I got the Carry Speed Strap, so I could easily carry it outside the bag and be ready to take and make photos.
This photo is a HDR image. I used Photomatix Pro to merge three DNG RAW photos bracketed from -2EV to +2EV. I then imported the merged or tonemapped image into Aperture 3 (I use Aperture 3 to manage all my photos). I did a few adjustments in Aperture like exposure and added contrast using curves. I lightened certain parts of the image with the dodge tool, just brushing it in on parts of the lamp-post and some of the snow. I also used the intensify contrast brush (I really like this one!) to darken the clouds in the background a bit more and make them stand out a bit. I then used Nik Color Efex Pro Aperture plugin to bring out some more detail and add some “brilliance” to the photo. The last step was to send it to Photoshop for sharpening with the unsharp mask filter. That was pretty much it.
Some details about this photo:
Camera: Pentax K-5
Lens: DA* 16-50
ISO: 200
Focal Length: 16mm
Aperture: f/10
3 image HDR, bracketed from -2 EV to +2 EV
Ddump 
Very nice shot!
:) thank you