Rick Sammon's HDR Photography Secrets for digital photographers

Chapter XIV. My HDR Gear: The Stuff of Magical Imagery

This is an HDR, fish-eye view of my workspace, where I use Photomatix, Topaz Adjust and Photoshop to create my HDR images. When I work, I pull down the shades so that the room light is constant, allowing me to take full advantage of my Apple 30-inch Cinema Display, calibrated with ColorMunki.

My Apple Quad-Core has 12GB of Ram and 500GB of hard drive space. For backup, I have one internal hard drive (Time Machine) and two accessory hard drives: G-Tech. For added backup and security, I have a Drobo (with four Seagate 1.5 GB hard drives) on my desktop.

I use a Wacom Intuos 3 table for precise control over image enhancement.

My photo printers: Canon Pro 9000 Mark II and Canon IPF 6100.

Cameras, Lenses and Tripods

For most of the pictures in this book, I used my Canon 5D Mark II and set the image quality to RAW. More than 90 percent of the images were taken with my Canon 17–40mm lens. The others were taken with my 24–105mm IS zoom and my Canon 15mm full-frame fisheye lens.

I used Induro tripods and ball heads; my CT 014 and BHD 1 are shown here. I like the tripods because they are rock steady. Plus, the ball heads feature a level and offer quick rotation for vertical and horizontal shooting.

The ball heads also features a quick-release mount, ...