HDR c&c

dnme

Was out on a photo walk with the local camera club this morning. I only took three shots. One of em was this. It's a 3 shot bracket that I have put through Photomatix purely as a means to recover as much dynamic range as possible. It was a grey dull washed out morning so tricky to shoot anything other than snaps with blown out skies. Not to worry, we had a great ol chat and thoroughly enjoyed the morning nonetheless.

I guess I was going for a low down perspective, wide angle. I kinda saw it as empathizing with those who are already laid to rest here. What would their perspective of the world from inside this old church ruin be?
HDR always looks a little fake to me and I have made a few attempts on this one. I'd really appreciate your comments. Hows the shot in general? The HDR? Which works better, the colour or b/w? or shall I just bin it?

Many thanks for looking and posting.
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DaireQuinlan

The HDR just doesn't work, colour or B&W. It sucks any tonal depth out of the scene completely, leaving everything flat and samey.

dnme

DaireQuinlan wrote: »

The HDR just doesn't work, colour or B&W. It sucks any tonal depth out of the scene completely, leaving everything flat and samey.

Any pointers Daire? as to how I might cook this one? Or is it for the bin?

magicbastarder

any comment i'd have would be addressing your comment that because it was dull, you only took three shots; and that any other shots would have been snaps. you certainly don't need the sun to shine to get good shots. in fact, i usually prefer to shoot when it's cloudy.

fret_wimp2

Im afraid i agree with Daire, I just really dont like HDR. I have rarely if ever saw it used to enhance a photo, and usually just makes it look un-naturally vibrant.

IMO, the best way to use HDR, is when the you want to show a correctly exposed sky and correctly exposed foreground. Both must look natural so blending both photos give this result. This is HDR as you are getting a higher dynamic range than you can wtih one shot, but done to make the photo look natural to the eye, not over vibrant, too contrasty and just not appealing.

To that extent your photos are not awfully HDR and so dont look so garish, but halos around the trees and generally between the sky and ground are clearly visible. you would need to clean those up first, and I would darken the foreground. that will make it look less HDR and more natural.

All subjective and my own opinion of course, but you did ask ;-)

Nebezpeci Mys

I'd say the colour one has some potential, don't think the bw works. If I was going to give it a go, I'd try to run it through the image fusion in Photomatix rather than to go for HDR. It's more subtle and usually produces less halos. Perhaps darkening the walls overall a bit could help as well....

dnme

Many thanks for the replies. It was one of those images that I got bogged down in, trying to process it. Eventually I could not see the wood for the trees so I could not determine if it was good or bad, or what was wrong with it. Posting it here made it very clear. yes it's flat as hell. And it's great to get the input from others that restores clarity to my brain.

What I'll do, is go back to the ruin (it's only down the road) and try the shot again some day in the coming weeks. I'd like to get it better on camera rather than struggle with it in PP. I have a shot in mind. It needs a little fill flash and a filter to balance out the natural dynamic range and add a little punch. The fill flash I can do as I just recently got my hands on a couple of s/h pocketwizards. But I don't have a filter system yet. Saving up for a Lee holder and one or two of their really expensive filters.

God bless clarity - and the returning to

ciaranr

Maybe it's just me, but I think the gravel spoils the "look" here and takes the scene out of it's time - could be better without the gravel?

sprinkles

The great thing about DSLRs is you can take as many shots as you want without wasting money on film. I don't see the reason in limiting yourself to just 3 shots, even (especially, imo) if it is dull outside. I for one love taking photos of interesting skies. So don't be afraid to shoot just about anything and spend time reviewing them on your computer when you get home. You'll learn more from the bad shots than you will from the good shots. Trust me. The number of times I've looked at a random shot I took and thought to myself how much better it would have been if I got it from a different angle, or moved back a bit, or focused on something else etc...

The one rule that I've seen repeated by many pro togs is that the dirty little secret to Digital Photography is to take lots of shots. There's always the option of deleting them.

LeoB

I prefer the colour version of your image. Its very hard to get right without over doing the effect but I think you have done good job on this.

AnimalRights

Not into them but the colour is better than the BW one.