Some HDR photos

Fenster

I know there are those who go for the whole "whacked out" look in HDR photos, but I prefer to take those that are much closer to what the eye sees. Because of the crappy weather here these past few days, I've had plenty of opportunity to take a lot of HDR shots:

St. Augustine's Church (water on the lens caused the odd lights):



The main road in Merlin Park woods:



Old forest wall in Merlin Park woods:



Shrubbery at Merlin Park:



Old man of the forest:



And the "waiting room":



Opinions?

Hydromonkey

I really like the first and second. I've been planning on doing some HDR but have'nt got round to it yet. Out of interest, what software/plugins did you use?

edunon

The halos around the trees on second and fourth photos, caused by wrong settings in Shadow/Highlight tool and/or Curves in photoshop, are horrible.
The others are ok, first one is really good, best by far

Fenster

The halos were there after I composed the HDR's first, so its not down to curves. On the pathway at least, it adds to the photo.

I used Photmatix to compose the HDR and the Gimp to clean them up.

edunon

Fenster wrote:

The halos were there after I composed the HDR's first, so its not down to curves. On the pathway at least, it adds to the photo.

I used Photmatix to compose the HDR and the Gimp to clean them up.

Still horrible, you might want to avoid those halos next time

Zillah

What is HDR?

Karoma

Zillah wrote:

What is HDR?

High Dynamic Range, I believe.

Fenster

Yes

joolsveer

I have to start by saying that I never heard of HDR before this thread.

What methods do you use Fenster to photograph the inside of churches. It is an area that I've always been interested in.

Alun

Looks like an extended version of digital blending to me, often used in landscape photos to cope with blown highlights in the sky, or am I missing something?

I'm a bit confused too by the references to all kinds of fancy specialised file formats using floating point instead of integer values to cope with the extended range. I'd have thought that 16, or 24 bits per colour would be more than enough to represent the range visible by the naked eye.

Fenster

I usually pass on the fancy techo-babble myself. I take three photos, one dark, one "normal" and one bright and combine them using Photomatix. Yes, you're right, this is essentially combining exposures, except this is for the entire image, rather than parts of it (as I understand your reference).

There are a hell of a lot of styles of HDR photos (see here), but the style I prefer is to capture about what the eye would see normally, so I just use the three exposures. It's excellent for dark days, dark areas (like the forest I was in - see here for all of mine) and the interiors of buildings.

Ignore people who blather on about channels and colour bits. If you have an SLR, a tripod and a computer you can do this!

Alun

Yes, what I was referring to is essentially taking just two exposures, one exposed for the foreground and one for the sky. The two are then combined with some photoshopping. See http://luminous-landscape.com/tutorials/digital-blending.shtml for an example. It's effectively a post processing version of using a graduated ND filter.

I too get confused with all the technobabble as well, especially when they start talking about colour spaces my eyes just glaze over

Shrimp

I dont like any of these, they dont display good HDR photography at all.

rymus

For anyone who still hasn't seen this; http://www.chromasia.com/iblog/archives/cat_hdr.php

Fenster

rymus wrote:

For anyone who still hasn't seen this; http://www.chromasia.com/iblog/archives/cat_hdr.php

Very nice work there!

Fenster

Shrimp wrote:

I dont like any of these, they dont display good HDR photography at all.

Cry more?

Actually. It's one thing to not like a photo - indeed, I prefer negative feedback, as its often more informative than positive feedback - but if all you have to say is, "I don't like it, 'cause it sucks" you really would be better off keeping your mouth shut.

rabbitinlights

I had also never heard of HDR, I really like the shots, especially the church, Ive been meaning to pop in there and take a few shots since it was done up.

Thanks for introducing me to something new!!!

(BTW, what did you expect shrimp to say?)

Fenster

Pretty much that

joolsveer

rabbitinlights wrote:

I had also never heard of HDR, I really like the shots, especially the church, Ive been meaning to pop in there and take a few shots since it was done up.

Thanks for introducing me to something new!!!

(BTW, what did you expect shrimp to say?)

I really like your photos of the churches too.

Shrimp

Sorry if I offended you Fenster...;)

http://www.chromasia.com/iblog/archives/0602242237_clean.php < thats a very good example of HDRP...

PaulieC

question about taking the pix for blending in HDR: I can understand how it's done for a static subject e.g. the interior of the church, but how do you handle stuff like clouds blowing across the sky? Surely pix taken at different times, even a few seconds apart would be too different to blend?
Or am I completely on the wrong track here?

Alun

Shrimp wrote:

Sorry if I offended you Fenster...;)

http://www.chromasia.com/iblog/archives/0602242237_clean.php < thats a very good example of HDRP...

Surely that depends on what you consider the "point" of HDR photography to be, doesn't it? From what little I've read about it, it's primary aim was to capture images with all of the dynamic range that the human eye has, rather than be restricted to the particular characterstics of films or sensors. I've seen some quite striking shots that achieve just that, but others, whether it's deliberate, accidental, or just down to plain ignorance of how to use the tools available, manage to create some slightly "other worldly" effects like the one you referenced above.

It's certainly "different", but to state that what this achieves is "good", and others "bad" is being somewhat oversimplistic I think. HDR photography is a technique, not an end result.

Shrimp

It is a technique which inevitably effects the end result.

Perhaps good or bad is simplistic, but then again where do you define whats simplistic, and whats not?

Fenster

Alun wrote:

Surely that depends on what you consider the "point" of HDR photography to be, doesn't it? From what little I've read about it, it's primary aim was to capture images with all of the dynamic range that the human eye has, rather than be restricted to the particular characterstics of films or sensors. I've seen some quite striking shots that achieve just that, but others, whether it's deliberate, accidental, or just down to plain ignorance of how to use the tools available, manage to create some slightly "other worldly" effects like the one you referenced above.

It's certainly "different", but to state that what this achieves is "good", and others "bad" is being somewhat oversimplistic I think. HDR photography is a technique, not an end result.

Aye, true. Like I've said, I try to match what the eye would see, when and where I can.

FX Meister

Shrimp wrote:

I dont like any of these, they dont display good HDR photography at all.

Typical arrogant response from Shrimp

lostexpectation

they all look a little too surreal to me

Shrimp

It's ignorant to call me arrogant, especially since you don't know me.

What did you get out it?

Fenster

Why argue with idiots?

FX Meister

Just put me back on your ignore list. Or was I even on it in the first place. It's not ignorant to call you arrogant. I base my judement on the majority of your posts here on boards. FACT

Shrimp wrote:

It's ignorant to call me arrogant, especially since you don't know me.

What did you get out it?

Fenster

lostexpectation wrote:

they all look a little too surreal to me

Practice makes perfect as they say.

That said, a hint of surreality (is that even a word?) is never a bad thing. I have another few photos up from today and yesterday. Two out of the four at least look more real, as I took the time to play with them. The third looks absolutely surreal, but that was the effect I was hoping for! And the fourth was for giggles yesterday.

Elessar

HDR cameras are the next "big thing" in photography. True 32bit sensors will be able to capture all exposure ranges in a single shot with great quality. Cant wait til they get put onto SLRs similar to the 30D....

Or so I'm told.

Fajitas!

I can honestly say, your second picture there looks like a scene in World of Warcraft... :P

dalk

I like some of the pics. Some have a nice look. I prefer the more natural looking ones. The interiors i think work best.

Having said that...

I'm not sold on the HDR software. It certainly produces a certain look, but the software makes images that patently do not look like reality, though technically they may have the same dynamic range as the eye. I don't like the long transitions between for example the sky and the sky line. It just looks like bad dodging and burning to me. Maybe its that they lack enough contrast for me... i dunno but the look is too false for my taste, to be used except for that surreal style of photography.

I'd prefer hand stitching in photoshop. You could keep the dynamic range, but the transitions would be a lot smoother... That would be my preference certainly.

melekalikimaka

tried this out last night after soon serious research into how to... i'm ashamed to even put it up... its not easy, is it better to shoot in raw or jpeg for this?

Fenster

I've tried both. I experiemented with jpg on my compact before I bought my SLR and it was frankly a pain in the ass to work with as I couldn't easily adjust the exposure later on.

All of the above shots were taken in raw, three photos using the auto-bracketing function on my camera. If it comes down to having to adjust the lens speed manually you run the risk of getting shake in the final picture. The exposure in the three photos can be tweaked if needs be, but I personally prefer to convert all the photos to tiff format "as is," combine them using whatever tool (I'm experimenting with cinepaint on Linux right now) and then process them afterward in the Gimp or Photshop.

mloc

what software is best for HDR? I've heard Photomatix is good... Photoshop CS2 has a HDR function too...

Shiny

Yes CS2 does HDR also but if you put the resulting image
beside an image from photomatrix, then you will quickly
make up your mind.

I have been making alot of HDR's since reading this thread.

They allow me to have much "nicer" photos than what I
normally could have produced with my average digicam.