Arashiyama River Banks

After our short mystical trip to the Bamboo Forest, we headed out for the Oi River of Arashiyama. It was not as colorful yet as expected but still I had to take the shot for documentation purposes.

It was so cloudy, I really had a hard time fixing this photo. Adding a little brightness washes up the photo easily. And adding contrast brings most of the detail back to backs. I did local adjustments both in Lightroom and Photoshop to make the photo a little acceptable.

If interested, I have my general workflow on how to create HDR images. Do check it out
arcreyes.blogspot.com/2010/12/hdr-workflow.html

Zen Garden of Tenryuji Temple

When you can't use a tripod what do you usually do? I most of the time analyze the scene of a single exposure can capture the entire dynamic range without sacrificing my low ISO settings. If is is not possible, I crank up the ISO to a level where the highest exposure's shutter speed is well above 1/40. This is to avoid any camera shake during the shot. Photomatix Pro does a good job aligning the images.

Below is the shot of the Zen Garden of Tenryuji Temple. I was a horrible cloudy day to for us. So, when I saw the clouds clearing up a little, I went back to this area to shoot again. Autumn colors are always amazing.

The Bamboo Forest

Finally, I made it to Kyoto just before my 1 year mark in Japan. I've been living in Yokohama since December 2009 and the farthest I was able to visit was only Nikko. There were only 3 places in mind that I'd love to visit and completely forgot about this place. Good thing I didn't arrange my own itinerary. I would have probably missed this place.

Also I am about to create my own tutorial on HDR. A lot of people are now getting hooked at it. Although Trey Ratcliff's tutorial is available, it is a little bit complicated for beginners. So, I'd like to create my own simple work-flow on how to make the images look more HDR realistic. Hopefully I can finish the tutorial over the weekend.