20% Discount on Unified Color HDR Software!!!

Vantage Point Images is happy to announce it is now an affiliate of Unified Color, The HDR Experts. Use offer code ‘Valentino’ to receive a 20% discount. Between now and the end of 2010, this code gives 20% off of everything. Starting 2011, it's 20% OFF on products over $140, and 10% off on products under $140.

In October I learned about Unified Color’s HDR software and its ability to create natural looking HDR’s. It also preserves the maximum information by working in 32-bit space unlike others that first convert to 16-bits. I spent several weeks testing both the standalone version, Expose, and the Photoshop (LR and Aperture) Plugin, 32-Float. I did numerous comparisons of many different types of captures to see how well it can create ‘the natural look’ and how well it compares to its competitors like Photomatix, Nik HDR Efex, and Photoshops own HDR Pro. I was so impressed with the results I was able to get I contacted the company to tell them that I finally found what I was looking for. Now I am happy to be able offer fellow photographers a tool designed not for surrealist results but a look that will never go out of style.

Please see my review of Unified Color’s software and of the Merge to 32-bit HDR Shootout. We are photographers and a picture is worth a 1,000 words so take a look at my sample gallery. The pictures in that gallery were created using either UC’s Expose or 32-Float (my preferred approach) for 90-100% of the processing. I did not make any effort to push them to extreme or overly colorful interpretations since that would defeat the purpose of the test.

Unified Color has a 30-day fully functional trial version and offer code ‘Valentino’ gives you a 20% discount. Also, they have a new program, Express, which is incredibly simple to use and offers outstanding results - plus it is the best I’ve seen for halo control. Look for a review article on Express soon.

Happy Holidays

Winter Solstice - Happy New Year!!!

To the ancients the winter solstice marked the new year. The days are shortest and the nights are longest (in the northern hemisphere) and for the new six months the days will get longer and longer. This date also marks the position furthest south the sun will both rise and set. This a useful spot to mark if you are a landscape photographer because the position of the sun during magic hour is key for deciding when and where to shoot. Anyone that knows my work knows that I am big on using the sun as a compositional element. I am a fanatic about planning a shot for a time of year when the sun will be in a good position to balance the composition. These captures are not an accident of chance, they are well calculated. The above sunset is local, about 20 miles from home, taken yesterday. This is a shot I saw in my head last January when the sun set more to the right and didn’t really work. I thought it might be nice to find the exact spot on Dec 21st where my vantage point would have the sun setting directly in back of the Bayonne Bridge. The plane taking off from New Liberty Airport was a nice perk. Captured with a Nikon D300 @280mm with my Nikon 70-200 f/2.8 + 1.4x TC. Happy real New Year!!!