Guest Post by Steve Hiebert Photography

Today I am sharing a post put together by my son,Steve. I am very proud of the work he does and love to share it with you all.

Johnston Canyon

1/2 second exposure f/22, 12-40 f2.8 lens on OMD EM-1 Handheld using built in image stabilization.

Processed in Lightroom from a RAW file to maintain detail in the highlights as well as the shadow areas.

Top of Sulphur Mountain, Banff

1/3200 f/4.0, 12-40 f2.8 lens on OMD EM-1

Processed in Lightroom from a RAW file with a gradient tool to bring down the highlight of the sky.

Top of Sulphur Mountain

9 image stitch (stitched in Photoshop)

1/1600 f4.0, 12-40 f2.8 lens on OMD EM-1

All images processed in Lightroom from RAW files with gradient tool used to bring down haze and highlights in the sky.

Johnston Canyon Lower Falls

15 image stitch to get a wider angle of view.

1/5sec f/16 12-40 f2.8 lens on OMD EM-1

Here is the process I went through to create the Johnston Canyon Lower Falls image.  Below are 15 JPEG images straight out of the camera.  To create the final image that was posted I used the RAW files though and I’ll explain as I go along why that is.    So first I processed all the images in Lightroom.  Some of the images I worked in Lightroom with a spot adjustment tool to create an HDR image essentially.  Notice at the very top of the falls is a really bright spot where the sun is shining against the trees.  This became a very distracting spot and draws the eye away from the main subject.  I used the spot adjustment tool and lowered the exposure on that area.  I also made a general over all adjustment to the shadows.  If you look at the close up image below you can see that bright highlight in the trees that I’m talking about as well as how “blocked up” the shadows are.  That’s because this was shot as a JPEG.  When I shot in RAW I was able to manipulate these images way beyond what any JPEG is able to be worked.  It brought out a lot more detail in the highlights as well as in the shadow areas of the image making a much richer and fuller looking image.  After working with these files in Lightroom I then opened them in Photoshop to stitch the files together to create the full image.  After the final image was stitched I then opened it in SnapSeed (desktop version) and added a little extra separation to the water to to show the patterns a little more.