Well the other day i realised that i had never tried out HDR processing. I also noticed that i’d never tried making panoramas, so i thought i’d give both manipulations a go. I went back looking through some old photos and found a set that might be suitable. As it turns out, the pictures weren’t that brilliant as they were taken through a glass window and lacked a fair bit of detail and sharpness for a good HDR, but i thought it would be a good opportunity to practice anyway. I tried very hard to not get that typical shitty over processed look that HDR images often produce, so i think i accomplished that atleast.
Below is my panorama and HDR of a view from a hotel room i was staying in when visiting Hong Kong last year. I think it turned out ok considering the original pictures i started with. Now that i know how HDR’s and Pano stitching works, i think i can take some pictures that will produce a better result next time.

**Here is another version i did without the crop, and more playing around with the colours.. I kind of like it. Definately not perfect though..

(Click for bigger version)

Ok, here’s a few pics from the trip. I just had to pick a selection out at random basically. Theres more on my flickr page.
cheers.

I was just going through some travel pics today, so thought i’d post a few up here.
These were taken during June/July this year when i went traveling around Asia with my girlfriend. We went to China, Hong Kong, and Japan, and it was an amazing trip. All countries were wonderful in their own way. The people were nice everywhere we went, and always willing to help if we got lost etc.
Getting around was pretty easy too, alot easier than we though it would be.

In China we did alot of pointing at maps after jumping in Cabs. Once we learnt that they charge on distance and not time they became our main form of transport. It’s so ridiculously cheap over there. We also took the subway too, which was very easy and efficient. It might sound dumb, but i was surprised how clean and neat it all was. I didnt see one bit of graffiti or rubbish anywhere. There were only 3 main lines i think, so their whole subway system was fairly easy to learn. In addition to the subway, we also took some sleeper trains with our tour group (that we met up with after a few days). When i heard we were taking sleeper trains i immediately thought of chickens running around, people eating food and throwing scraps on the ground, stepping over people sleeping under seats.. you get the idea. However is was quite the opposite. The trains seemed pretty new, clean, and reasonably comfortable. each little cabin contained 6 people on bunk beds, so our tour group took up two of them just about. Over all everything was very smooth in China, alot easier to get around than i originally thought.

In Japan we mostly took the subway which was very easy after our first couple of attempts. We picked probably the hardest place to learn also, as our first experience of Japan Subway stations was at Shinjuku, which just so happens to be the busiest stations on the planet with over 3.31 million passengers a day, and 11 different train lines, all in Japanese, and all pretty amazing. Actually every single time we exited Shinjuku station during our trip we managed to use a different exit, not intentionally, its just the way things happened! In addition to the tube, we also had a 2 week JR Pass which was fantastic. We used it top travel to Kyoto, Hiroshima, Osaka, and then back again. It was so efficient, and the staff at the booking centres were very helpful.

Hong Kong was quite different again. They have an impressive subway system that are alot newer than Japan. We took the tube a fair bit, but also did alot of walking. We didnt really cover as much distance as in China or Japan, and alot of people spoke english too (as opposed to China where everyone tries to speak it, and Japan where alot of people know it but avoid speaking it).

ok, wow, what a tangent. I have no idea why i started talking about transport when im meant to be posting pictures. I guess i’ll post them up next!

here is the subway map for Tokyo :