Deepwood Estates- Salem, Oregon (backyard view)

Canon 30D, 17-40 f/4L  ISO: 100, aperture: f/5.6, shutter: 15 seconds middle exposure (5 bracketed images), tripod: yes, post: Photomatix Pro 4 and Lightroom 3.

The Deepwood Estates is a treasure of the City of Salem.  The 1894 Queen Anne Style home is fully restored and open to the public for tours…it is fabulous.  The grounds include several unique garden areas, gazebos and the original carriage house.  The estate is a popular venue for weddings and other special events.

Early evening is a great time for photographing the house and grounds.  This is the time of day when the yard lights come on and there is still ambient light that fills in the shadow areas.  The above image was created from 5 bracketed exposures combined in Photomatix.  Once in Lightroom, I made adjustments with the transform sliders in the lens correction panel.  Distortion is a common problem when photographing architectural subjects with a wide-angle lens.  Lightroom can help correct the problem.  This ‘darkroom’ adjustment tool is not nearly as good as using the tilt-shift feature of a view camera, but can help none the less.

Above: This is a 5 exposure HDR image adjusted using the sliders in the lens correction panel.  The perspective is still not perfect but a nice improvement over the original.

Left: Here’s the original image before making adjustments.  Click on the image for a larger view.  The software gives you an opportunity to square up the leading edge of the building and remove the converging lines as evident on the left edge of the house and the columns on the front porch.  One disadvantage when using this tool is the cropping that goes on when adjusting the image with the vertical, horizontal and rotate sliders.  So, when composing the original shot allow for cropping.  My original wasn’t quite wide enough.

The last photo, showing the west side of the house was also adjusted with the lens correction sliders.

Below: 5 bracketed exposures processed in Photomatix, ISO: 400, aperture: f/8, shutter: middle 0.4 seconds.