Enfuse for HDR

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I am a little late to discovering the Enfuse plugin for working with HDR images. I started out many years ago using Photomatix. At the time, it was the go to software for creating HDR images. Then Adobe got a lot better with their HDR software within Photoshop and I started to use that. Even more recently, Adobe built HDR processing in to Lightroom and I didn’t need to go to Photoshop at all. The HDR software worked reasonably well so I stuck with it. I sometimes felt that it didn’t do as good a job of using the full range of the exposures but it was okay.

I wasn’t entirely satisfied though so have kept an eye on other options. Someone mentioned Enfuse to me so I decided to give it a go. It is a plugin for Lightroom and, in the free download, you can try it out but with a limitation on the output image size of 500 pixels. Obviously this isn’t useful for anything other than testing but that is the point.

The first thing I tried it on was a shot I made at Half Moon Bay looking up at a P-51 Mustang prop and directly into the sun. This is certainly as much of a range of exposures as you are likely to get. The perfect thing for an HDR trial. The results in the small scale file seemed pretty impressive so I decided to buy the package. There is no fixed price. You make a donation via PayPal and get a registration code. I am impressed by the quality of some of the work people put out so I am happy to donate for what they do. With the software activated, I reran the P-51 shots. Below is the version I got from Lightroom’s own HDR and following it the version from Enfuse.

I did have some issues initially. Lightroom was not reimporting the image after it was created. This turned out to be an issue with the way I named the file in the dialog and a tweak to that seemed to fix things. Strangely, it had been fine on the trial so I have no idea why it became an issue but it is done. I also played with a slightly less extreme case with an F-22 and, as above, the Lightroom version is first and the Enfuse version is second. I was really pleased with the result on this one with a very natural look to things. So far, I see Enfuse being a useful tool for my HDR going forward.

Why Am I Excited By a White Jet?

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I have mentioned A340s and their gradual demise a few times in the blog. Sometimes it has been that I have got ahead of myself. However, I recently was genuinely surprised. Apparently, during the summer, an A340 makes a single flight a week into Oakland from the Azores. I had no idea about this until I read something about it online. A direct flight from Oakland to an island in the middle of the Atlantic? Who would have thought it?

I managed to be in place for the arrival one time. The airline is HyFly. I am guessing you have never heard of them. The jet is chartered from another operator but the whole operation is Portuguese controlled. (The Azores are Portuguese if you didn’t know.). The aircraft is totally unbranded. An all white A340-300 sounds really dull. I guess it really is. However, the novelty certainly caught my attention and I am both pleased and annoyed that I had no idea it was a regular visitor so close to home.

Dogs Driving Cars

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Okay, I will freely admit that this is not going to be the most informative post. We were walking through Port Townsend and a car came by. Nothing unusual in that. However, out of the sunroof was a dog wearing goggles, presumably to protect the eyes from dust and debris while on the road. This is not the sort of thing I normally see so I thought I would share.

A Surprise Private 757

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If you spend a day somewhere, you can get absolutely nothing out of the ordinary. Alternatively, you can be somewhere for a short time and get a really lucky break. I was down in Hayward awaiting an unusual Airbus movement as I headed to something else and, in the short space of time I was there, someone else showed up. This was a Boeing 757 that has been converted for private charter use. I have actually come across this aircraft before but, when it showed up heading in to Oakland, I was rather pleased with my good fortune.

The Lions Show Their Love for the Cubs – And Why Not????

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To be fair, the lions are pretty flexible when it comes to affiliations. When the White Sox went to the World Series, they wore White Sox caps. Bears helmets and Blackhawks helmets don’t cause a problem since there is only one team for each sport in the city unlike supporting one or other of the baseball teams. However, the lions do appear to be fans of whichever team is winning! (For those of you not familiar with the lions, they flank the entrance to the Art Institute of Chicago and they get into the spirit if a team is doing well.) By now, of course, we know how it all worked out! Let’s go Cubbies!

They Have Painted the HC-27J

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When I went up to McClellan for the firefighting conference, I got to see the HC-27J airframes that had been transferred to the Coast Guard. They will replace the C-130 airframes that they have been using. I posted about that airframe in this post. I was recently staying back up in the area so decided to see what was happening at the field. The Coast Guard has now started repainting the airframes so now they are showing up in their own colors rather than being in the grayness which they were transferred. There was also a C-130 parked up. It didn’t look too active. I assume it will be heading off for firefighting conversion soon.

Deception Pass

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We made a transit from one location to another that involved two ferries. It was necessary to drive across Whidbey Island to get from one to the other and, aside from the weather meaning there was no action at the Naval Air Station for me to see, it also meant that we would cross Deception Pass. I had no idea about this pass before we drive over it. As we did so, we could see that it was a pretty dramatic spot so we quickly turned around and parked up.

I decided to cross the first bridge to get to the viewing area in the middle. It was raining quite hard but it seemed like it was worth getting wet for. What I hadn’t thought about was my queasiness with heights. While I have no issue with flying and I’m quite happy to sit in the open door of a helicopter while photographing something, I do have an issue with heights in certain circumstances. Walking across high bridges while very close to the edge is one of those. This bridge has a sidewalk but it is not wide and you have traffic very close so you don’t have much scope for staying away from the railings.

My logical mind knows there is nothing wrong and that I am not going to spontaneously flip over the railing but that doesn’t stop me feeling very uncomfortable. However, just like being on the top of high buildings in Chicago for photo shoots, if I want to get the shot, I am going to have to suck it up. It was worth it. The viewing areas in the middle provide some great looks at the structure and the colors of the bridge were enhanced by being so wet. The water below certainly looked turbulent and I can imagine how happy everyone was when the bridge was originally built.

Pakistani Block 50 F-16s

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I have made two short visits to Nellis for recent Red Flag exercises. The Pakistani Air Force attended RF16-4 but they showed up near the end of the preceding RF16-3 to allow them to familiarize themselves with operations before the next exercise kicked off. They weren’t supposed to be flying while we were that after their arrival but the F-16s that launched over us clearly had the conformal tanks and it turned out that they were up and flying ahead of the rumored times. Sadly, it was a brief opportunity and the lighting wasn’t great.

I did head back for RF16-4 and that trip will get a post of its own. Enough went on that week to easily fill another entry. However, staying on track, I did get to see the Pakistan jets as they launched and recovered. They are a recent build standard and, aside from the conformal tanks, they are also distinctive courtesy of a paint scheme that is different to the normal F-16s camouflage. I don’t know whether they had a productive time at Red Flag or not but I was glad to catch them while they were over.

Disappearing Glaciers

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From Hurricane Ridge, you get a great view of the surrounding mountains of the Olympics. September obviously is not the time to see the snow on most of the mountains but there are some glaciers on some of the peaks. However, it appears like they are in retreat. Photos on the display boards near the visitors’ center show the extent of the glaciers in previous decades and they have retreated a long way. If they don’t slow down (and usually this accelerates), they will be gone before too long. We saw them but it seems plenty won’t get the chance.

Norwegian East Bay Arrivals

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Norwegian Airlines have been flying in to Oakland for quite a long time now. They started out with flights from Oslo but they now also have flights from London Gatwick. Despite them having been coming in for a long time, I have never got good shots of them. I have often seen the jets while standing on the BART platform at Bayfair but that is not a time to get a shot. I have also seen them across the bay from the SFO side. Finally I got to see one coming in from the right side of the bay and on the side of the jet that had light.

Norwegian has famous people from that country on the fins of the jets. This one was Edvard Munch. I don’t know how many different people they have on the jets but, with this being the first one I have shot, I don’t have what you would call a collection. It was nice to catch it later in the day as the sun was getting lower. Maybe I shall catch more in due course. However, there won’t be a lot because Oakland is a bit quiet unless you are after Southwest or FedEx jets so I won’t be there often.