My wife and I were wandering through the old city of Casco Viejo in Panama City and my eye was caught by this old building. I think the thing that first struck me was the ragged outline of the roof against the skyline. The overhanging roofs of the neighbouring buildings help to build the sense of compression that the wide angle lens establishes by pulling in the edges of the frame. After I took the image I pulled it in to Nik HDR Efex Pro. HDR Efex Pro is a piece of software that is intended to produce HDR like images from a single RAW frame without having to take 3 or more frames. (If you are interested in HDR check out this tutorial.) I hadn’t really used HDR Efex before and I was impressed with the results of some of the more subtle treatments. If pulled out the detail in the overhanging eaves of the neighbouring buildings and and added real punch to the texture of the image. Below is the image without the HDR Efex treatment.
-Russell Berg