"Weather forecast for tonight: dark." George Carlin
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Yet another shot from the DDO, when it was time to look through the telescope the lights got turned out, except for red-lights that don't affect your night-vision. The way they illuminated the telescope made for some really unique shots.
The Grimsby, Ontario Firehall is pretty quiet at night. Although a core of professional firefighters form the nucleus of the response team(s), a large body of volunteers flesh out the operation. Competition for the opportunity to be a volunteer is always tight. Actually, a new round of recruitment is currently underway, according to the LED sign up front, anyway.
As in most firehalls, the trucks and equipment are spotless, showing the attention to detail that may make the difference between life and death for fire victims and the responding crew members. - JW
This image was made using an HDR (High Dynamic Range) image created from 3 separate exposed images and subsequently further processed using that HDR image as the base and replacing portions of the HDR with 'better' elements from the original image series used to create the HDR. Hence the use of the term 'Hybrid'.
This image is processed in HDR software from a bracketed set of 3 images taken using a tripod-mounted Nikon D5000 fitted with a Nikkor 12-24mm VR lense set to 12mm, ISO640, Aperture priority mode (with a -1.33EV bias), f/5.6, EV+/-2 stops around a nominal 1/3 sec shutter speed. HDR processing in Luminance/Qtpfsgui with settings as indicated below. PP in GIMP: bring in as additional layers all 3 original bracket images, select the EV+0 frame and using a soft-edged-eraser, replace the HDR sections in certain lighter sections of the lighting and interior lit sections (for example), and similarly from other layers, such things as less noisy (actually HDR processing artifacts) sections using the EV-2 layer for the lamps themselves, using the EV+2 layer to brighten the signs and truck bodies front and roof, flatten, tone curve adjust to slightly darken the image overall and make it look more 'natural', minor colour balance adjust to clean up a bit of sodium vapour lamp orange from a nearby street lamp, boost saturation slightly overall, sharpen, increase canvas size and add a black layer behind to create bars, add text, and scale to 1024 wide for posting.
