We are extremely fortunate to have a lot of public access land in Kings Park, the Town of Smithtown, and on Long Island in general.
A particular treasure is the Greenbelt Trail system on Long Island. Right in our own backyard starts (or ends) a 32 mile hiking trail that cuts across Long Island and takes you through most all of our natural habitats. Starting at the Long Island Sound at Sunken Meadow State Park it ends at the Great South Bay in Heckscher State Park. You travel through salt water wetlands, fresh water wetlands, as well as a good amount of dry land on a marked and maintained trail. There are also several other similar trails on Long Island.
The accompanying photo, Greenbelt Sunrise, is a High Dynamic Range (HDR) image created by the “tone compressor” tonemapping method in Photomatix. The tone compressor method tends to produce a less pronounced HDR effect. It can be a more natural looking photo while still preserving all the tones of the scene. I like this version much more than the other version of the same image I created by the other tonemapping method, “details enhancer.”
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This all sounds a lot more complicated than it really is. I found the Photomatix software to be pretty user-friendly after you get the idea of what you are doing. I was hooked when I got some extraordinary results and then started to look for the HDR potential in the scenes I came across. If you’re looking for a little more sun in your sunrise photos, try the Photomatix free trial.
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Kings Park Photo Club: Next meeting is Thursday, June 20, 2013, 7 PM at the Kings Park Library. New club member Patrick Friedmann, a professional photographer, will give a talk on one of his passions: Motorsports photography. Also, come early to the Library and view the world photography exhibit on display. The photos were taken by Dick Chen, another Kings Park Photo Club member. Dick travelled the world on business and took some amazing shots of the places that most of us only heard of.
Photo Tip: “It Worked For Me:” I’m going to change things up a bit and post the next photo tip in a few days. I’ll also post another of my favorite Greenbelt Trail photos.
Thanks for reading. If you have any suggestions for discussion topics, please post them in the comments.
