More HDR...

Richard Peters · Apr 11, 2007

EDIT: Another shot further down the thread now.

Ok, now don't get too excited as its not exactly a wall hanger lol

Whilst researching what GND filters to get, for an up coming holiday to Scotland, I came across lots of talk about HDR images and CS2's method for making them. Its not really something I had read up on before but decided it could be another way of getting good landscapes whilst I'm in Scotland.

I rushed home tonight to have a quick go after work as I had been reading about it all day. I was presented with a very dull sky so I decided to just do a quick shot from my front garden (I should have maybe removed the rubbish first and maybe made sure the horizon was straight but hey ho lol).

This was a blend of 8 images. I can see the potential to get some very good results from this but I can also see how easy it is to get things looking very fake VERY quickly! After making the sky look very menacing it looked so wrong so I calmed things down to get them looking how it looked to my naked eye which made a huge difference - subtlety is the key with these shots!

I'd be interested to see other HDR shots and would appreciate any advice from anyone more experienced at this. I'm still going to get some filters for Scotland but I'll definitely be some of this stuff along side it as well.

The photo shows a comparison between the camera's original exposure reading (with me trying to get a happy medium of sky and foreground) which is on the left and the 8 shot blend on the right.

Subscribe to see EXIF info for this image (if available)

As I said its only a first attempt and I only had a quick play around but its definitely something I plan on practicing as I think given the right care some very nice images could be produced with this method.

Gale · Apr 11, 2007

Looks good from what I can see.
The image is rather small.
The sky was recovered and the shadows unblocked:>))

I am curious why you needed 8 shots

Richard Peters · Apr 11, 2007

Gale said:
Looks good from what I can see.
The image is rather small.
The sky was recovered and the shadows unblocked:>))

I am curious why you needed 8 shots

Yes sorry about the size, I post on a few forums that don't like large images so I just did once to suit all.

Oh I probably didn't need 8 shots. As it was my first time I wasn't sure how many to do. I had read anywhere from 3 and up was good and the more shots the more DR you could get so I just did these without thinking too much about it

xrdbear · Apr 11, 2007

You've done a great job of an HDR shot without making it look like one. I think you could lighten up the foreground a little more if you wanted to without departing from reality.

So many tone mappings we see are actually ghastly but no-one seems prepared to say so :wink:

Look forward to seeing more of your HDR work.

RFCGRAPHICS · Apr 12, 2007

A very nice example of the proper use of HDR IMHO. Too often I see HDR images with unnatural luminosity relationships. Your image is quite natural looking. Congrats

Regards

RFC

Richard Peters · Apr 12, 2007

Thanks all. I'll be practicing this method more over the next two weeks to make sure I know what I'm doing in time for my holiday

Richard Peters · Apr 15, 2007

Another quick test I did today whilst out photographing. Thought I'd go extreme and have the sun full on in the shot. Experimenting with Photomatix to try and get something realistic. Excuse my friend, had no idea I was about to take a shot or he might have given us a pose lol

Subscribe to see EXIF info for this image (if available)

xrdbear · Apr 16, 2007

Impressive window clamp. How much does that sort of arrangement cost?

What part of Scotland are you coming to? Skye was a bit short of visitors this Easter and it could do with a boost.

The sun has held well in the shot but the foreground is still a little dark to be useful. Was this a tone mapping or multiple shots?

Richard Peters · Apr 16, 2007

I merged multiple exposures in Photomatix and then applied tone mapping. I aimed to get the image looking as close to how I saw it as I could. I think HDR images fail to look real when sections of the image are mich brighter than they should be. Here I kept the range rover looking a little dark on purpose to maintain a level of realism. I could probably boost the shadows more but I like to be subtle where I can and this whole side of the car was in dark sahde.

Its all just experimenting at the moment anyway to see what works and what doesn't.

That clamp was made by my friend (the one pictured) as he is an engineer and runs the workshop at the company he works for so is always making custom stuff. Its holding a D2x with 600mm f/4

We are off to the Isle of Mull on the 4th may until the 13th. Really looking forward to it :biggrin: