Any one trying HDR Photography?

digitalbeginner

Interesting article about HDR Photography on CNet here

Is anyone trying this yet?

Roen

I've stuck a couple of HDR images up on my Flickr. I'm kind of wary of it though as it seems that every second pic these days is manipulated in this fashion.

digitalbeginner

"Waterford County" looks stunning!

What did it look like before? How many shots did you take?

Fenster

I had a fair few up here.

Its like any technique: Its just that. Its good for some things and bad for other things.

cianclarke

I have to admit I've had absolutely *no* luck with using HDR in any situation yet. It always seems to work better to balance exposure by glass, or to blend exposures later using PS layer masks. Maybe the right opportunity hasn't come up yet...

digitalbeginner

Hi Fenster, is "Lonely day" a HDR image, from what I understand moving images can cause difficulty with this technique. The clouds look stunning. What's your technique/software?

Cian is the light house a HDR shot? Again, would the moving waves cause difficulty with the combination of the different exposures what with the waves moving between the different shots.

JMcL

cianclarke wrote:

I have to admit I've had absolutely *no* luck with using HDR in any situation yet. It always seems to work bette(r to balance exposure by glass, or to blend exposures later using PS layer masks. Maybe the right opportunity hasn't come up yet...

I do all mine using layers and layer masks. As a technique it's fairly straightforward, to replicate the effect of an ND filter exactly, just apply a mask and use the gradient tool. It's about 10 seconds work and very effective. See the 3rd pic below for an example. You can of course get much more inticate.

In terms of manipulation, at its most basic it's not really any different from putting a filter on the lens, you're just deferring the effect until later, when you arguably have more control.

Here're a few examples, the first one is a combination of bracketed shots, and raw images processed with different exposure compensation (I wanted to bring out some detail in the rocks). The last two are from a single raw processed twice:

(Flickr page)

(Flickr page)

(Flickr page)

JMcL

digitalbeginner wrote:

Hi Fenster, is "Lonely day" a HDR image, from what I understand moving images can cause difficulty with this technique. The clouds look stunning. What's your technique/software?

Cian is the light house a HDR shot? Again, would the moving waves cause difficulty with the combination of the different exposures what with the waves moving between the different shots.

Things moving are a complete pain. If you can develop a raw multiple times, this isn't an issue. In 90% of situations, you'll have enough dynamic range to cope - providing the highlights haven't been blown.

digitalbeginner

Stunning shots JMcL. I'm particularly impressed with the RAW one.

Seems to me that you've hit on something here. Maybe the CNet story needs to be modified by the inclusion of RAW shots.

So in your experience you're saying that the vast majority of shots can be dealt with in this way? What about interior design photography, where you want to balance the exposure between the room and the view outside the window, is the Dynamic Range of RAW good enough for that?

joolsveer

Here's one I took yesterday at Malahide.

elven

You can see the huge difference between the 'HDR-ed' image and the blended exposures. While most of the time it's generally as annoying as those eighties prism star thingy filters, like the picture above it can be used to produce am unusual shot. My pet hate with that kind is where it turns clouds and blue sky dark grey, usually when it is a nice blue sky with those white fluffy clouds.

As for processing RAW files more than once, if there aren't lots of murky shadows and bright bright highlights, it gives great results - but I've got quite a few RAW files that are still lacking in the tonal range - I metered for the shadows then underexposed even more to keep the detail in the highlights, but I ended up with them still blown out, as well as nasty noise when I brightened up the darker bits during the RAW processing. I was sure I'd read that digital has something like the latency of slide film, rather than print film, which is quite limited. But I'm hoping to be proved wrong on that one

JMcL, love those landscapes. Classy stuff!

Fenster

digitalbeginner wrote:

Hi Fenster, is "Lonely day" a HDR image, from what I understand moving images can cause difficulty with this technique. The clouds look stunning. What's your technique/software?

Cian is the light house a HDR shot? Again, would the moving waves cause difficulty with the combination of the different exposures what with the waves moving between the different shots.

Its more or less as-is and converted to black and white.

I like black and white as it can give a bland scene detail and emotion it doesn't have in colour.

digitalbeginner

Sorry to be the bearer of bad news elven, but this is a direct quote from the CNet article...

"Dynamic range measures how great a difference between light and dark can be captured by a digital camera or film. Relative to the human eye, all photography has a limited dynamic range, and digital photography suffers even more than film."

elven

digitalbeginner wrote:

Sorry to be the bearer of bad news elven, but this is a direct quote from the CNet article...

"Dynamic range measures how great a difference between light and dark can be captured by a digital camera or film. Relative to the human eye, all photography has a limited dynamic range, and digital photography suffers even more than film."

Gah!

I actually had a bash at the blending method described in this tutorial on the luminous landscape site, with a RAW image that I had underexposed in order to keep detail in the sky - and I came up with these:



(Click for the flickr photo page)

Hmmm, I need to start using standard borders...

Anyway, they are still quite dark, and looking at them on a different monitor today, I could do with upping the saturation and contrast a bit more. But I was quite happy with the simplicity of the process, using the lighter image as a mask.

JMcL

digitalbeginner wrote:

Stunning shots JMcL. I'm particularly impressed with the RAW one.

Seems to me that you've hit on something here. Maybe the CNet story needs to be modified by the inclusion of RAW shots.

So in your experience you're saying that the vast majority of shots can be dealt with in this way? What about interior design photography, where you want to balance the exposure between the room and the view outside the window, is the Dynamic Range of RAW good enough for that?

Thanks!

Interiors can be tricky. If you've got bright sunlight outside, the range will be too big, or rather as elven said, if you try to balance them in one shot, you'll be left with the interiors in deep shadow which will be full of noise when you bring them up for reasons explained in the article I linked to in this post. I'd say in that case you're better off bracketing, as you won't have the problem of things moving. The problem with digital and highlights is that the clipping is sudden. If it's blown, it's blown. With slide I think there's at least a bit of latitude, and with print film, there's a nice smooth falloff.

Regarding blending using layers and masks, I posted a couple of links to good tutorials here

JMcL

elven wrote:

Gah!

I actually had a bash at the blending method described in this tutorial on the luminous landscape site, with a RAW image that I had underexposed in order to keep detail in the sky - and I came up with these:



(Click for the flickr photo page)

Hmmm, I need to start using standard borders...

Anyway, they are still quite dark, and looking at them on a different monitor today, I could do with upping the saturation and contrast a bit more. But I was quite happy with the simplicity of the process, using the lighter image as a mask.

Where you've got a sudden change in contrast on a sharp horizon, you can get the halo problems you describe once you blur the mask. Try one or more of the following:

• Lower the radius in the gaussian blur
• Use the paintbrush on the horizon to get a sharp transition.
• Use levels on the layer mask. I almost always do this anyway

Also, I'll usually paint parts of the mask not near the transition in pure white or black as appropriate

Roen

digitalbeginner wrote:

"Waterford County" looks stunning!

What did it look like before? How many shots did you take?

Sorry about taking so long to reply.
I only used one shot for this HDR, I used a plug-in called Tone Mapping by HDRsoft. I then made selections locally adjusted contrast. It was a bit of a cop out as the original was so bad, bear in mind that it was at about 7am after a sleepless night in a tent so I was kind of running about in a daze. I didn't bother to check the histogram even, which I do automatically at this stage. Anyway, finished

And original.
*EDIT* who turned html tags off:(

joolsveer

Of the HDR shots I have taken over the last three months this is the one that I think is most representative of the original scene. I took three exposures at -2, 0 and +2 of the metered exposure and then combined them and tone mapped the result. The location is Saint Mochta's Church, Porterstown, Dublin 15.

elven

It's a pretty busy picture, but somehow the light does look quite faithful (no pun intended) to the original scene - obviously I wasn't there but you know what I mean.

In contrast, I just went nuts with a picture I took waiting for the ferry at Belfast on Friday night, I thought that it was right for that treatment because of the artificial lighting and the subject.

Usually I would want to be as subtle as possible, but you have to try everything once, don't you?

311

Great work on that shot julie ,the orange light against the truck reflection looks great. hot and cold.;)

440Hz

JMcL, those shots are spectacular, particularly the last one, had to take a trip to Flickr for a better look.

Thing with HDR is its so hit and miss that you really need to have some fun, not take it too seriously, I find anyway. I posted my first ever HDR on here a few months back...


At the time I was happy with it, but when I look back its dreadful, the clouds are blown out and the sand looks dreadful. I think picking your subject for HDR is the biggest challenge, the software is easily enough to master, but judging the subject is what takes the practice. I have taken some sunset HDRs that I havent uploaded but must get round to that soon.

Fionn

i'm still trying to do ordinary photography never mind abbreviated stuff