"Twisted Lighting"

These are a couple of metal reflectors that are being lit only with the compact fluorescent lamps that they contain. This creates a very high dynamic range (HDR) situation that lends itself to HDR photography techniques. Without HDR techniques, either the highlights would be totally blown or the shadow detail would be totally lost.

The image seen here is an 8 bit representation of an HDR image. It was created by compositing 6 photos of the lit lamps. The reflectors were positioned in front of a black velvet background. The initial photo was taken at 1/50 sec, f/4.5. Each subsequent exposure was decreased by approximately 3 EV units. I converted the 16 bit RAW files to 16 bit TIFF files with CS2. These TIFFs where then converted to a single HDR image using Photomatix Pro v2.2.1. This was then tone mapped and saved as a 16 bit TIFF image for final sharpening and conversion to an 8 bit JPEG in CS2. The lens was a EF 180mm f/3.5L Macro USM on a Canon 20D.