Tarpon Springs – An HDR Adventure

I’ve been wanting to get back to Tarpon Springs for quite some time now… it has been several years since my last visit. It isn’t all that far away, but with traffic it amounts to a good hour’s drive. Finally, last weekend, Carol & I decided to make the run up there. We would have dinner, and walk the Sponge Docks, allowing my to take lots of pictures in the golden hour before sunset!

Nature didn’t cooperate, however; as we drove north we could see the clouds rolling in, east to west, and before we got there the entire sky was a gloomy grey. Rain was threatening, and sure enough, just as we arrived, the drizzle began. But an hour’s drive is an investment, and we decided to go ahead and have dinner anyway, and see what we could find worth photographing.

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Being indoors, in the scenic Greek restaurant (The Parthenon, 751 Dodecanese Blvd; excellent food!), gave me a chance to try some high ISO images with my new Canon 7D. At ISO 12800, the images came out a bit on the noisy side, but Photoshop CS5’s Camera Raw features made quick work of it.

But the best was yet to come…

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Later, as we enjoyed a cup of coffee and some Baklava at Hella’s cafe, lo and behold! The sun came out, and that elusive golden light made an appearance after all! Leaving Carol with the cappuccino, I grabbed my camera and tripod and raced back outside to see what I could see. With the light and shadows, HDR seemed to be the way to go, and I managed to capture some great images.

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And, wouldn’t you know it, with the light streaming in before sunset, and shining directly on the gloomy clouds in the east, we got a rainbow!

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All in all it was a lovely evening, great food with great company in a historic area, all capped off by nature’s best light show. Patience does pay off!

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