Those are awesome!! I am officially inspired to give HDR photography a try. Just like anything else, HDR is a tool, which, if used correctly and sparingly, can yield some amazing results. I think some people don't realize the point of HDR is to photgraph scenes that have a very wide range of light. The daylight photos have no need for HDR. It's the ones with the lit buildings against a night sky, or the interior of a house with the exterior showing through the window that really show what HDR is all about. Anyway, cool pictures and thanks again for sharing them.
In order to do the HDR do you have to have shot in RAW??? if so my 1gig card can only hold 97 RAW pics. Which is about a third of what i take......a day.
Yup, in other words a "high dynamic range" Many "HDR" pictures I've seen are simply overexposed with blown out highlights and reduced shadows. At 8MP, my RAW shots are about 10MB each. Since I bracket my shots, figure 30MB for each scene. That's why I have an 8GB CF card and carry a portable hard drive with a card reader. I'm going to try to explain HDR as simply as possible since there seems to be much misunderstanding. From the perspective of HDR images, RAW gives you zero benefit. Where RAW shines is color, brightness, etc.. Not exposure. The only time exposure (combination of sensitivity, aperture and shutter speed) can properly be changed is before you snap the picture. Your camera meters light. If something in your viewfinder is REALLY bright and you meter to it, you will lose detail (get black) in the dark areas. Similarly, if something is REALLY dark and you meter to it, you will lose detail (get white) in the bright areas. Adjusting the exposure in post processing will unequivocally never get you that detail. It has to be recorded when you take the picture. For an example, check out this picture I took last year in Hawai'i. The sun was shining through a cloud at the upper right. I metered to the scene in which I was interested, which was much darker than the reflection of the sun. Consequently, the upper right my picture is white. It's overexposed... those pixels were worthless from the get go (although I think it looks cool that way, hence me not cropping it out), and no amount of playing with the exposure bar will create detail. http://gallery.mblackwood.com/main.php?g2_itemId=323&g2_enterAlbum=0 And that's what HDR is for, really. You add various exposures together so that you can show all the detail. If you pull the exposure bar around and add some stuff together, you will get an effect. But it won't be a proper HDR image. So, in summary, the answer to your question is No, you don't have to shoot RAW because RAW doesn't allow you to avoid bracketing shots. You can shoot JPEG, TIFF, whatever. As long as you bracket
Thanks for the clarification, I guess I won't bother with RAW then ... And indeed, the automatic bracketing sucks. -1,0,+1 isn't enough ... but when you forgot your tripod home, it's better than nothing. Does everybody here use Photomatix? How does PShop (CS2 or CS3) compare? Supposedly CS3 is vastly improved in regard to HDR ... but I have to say that so far the learning curve is pretty damn steep in comparison to Photomatix ...
My first attempt. As someone mentioned, I now realize the built-in bracketing of -1, 0, +1 isn't enough of a range. Image Unavailable, Please Login
Well, if you don't want to worry about color settings, sharpness, contrast, etc., go ahead and shoot RAW. Color balance especially. Unless you are in a constant light situation (like a studio), proper color balance will vary from picture to picture. That's the primary reason I shoot RAW: so I don't have to go through the menu and change from sunlight to shade to custom to whatever from shot to shot. I do it after the fact, and without any losses (thanks to RAW). How much you bracket by will depend on the scene, I imagine. I bracket by 1 stop most of the time, but I don't make HDR images.
Except, maybe since RAW images have more color depth, the dynamic range may be better. I'm not sure, though.
Yep! I've searched high and low for good photo locations in the South Bay and that's the only place that seems to work. Any recommendations? If you're ever interested in getting together to do some shooting, PM me. I'm always looking for a good excuse to take pictures. Will you be at the Starbucks meet on Thursday?
What is your process for creating these HDR images? Could you post the several original files that you use? I suspect you are missing a step somewhere. Just tryin to help.
So in other words to do HDR you get more then one shot of the same thing, bracket it together to make the image be full of detail? Sorry, im not completely understanding.
Correct. Basically, if a shot has a very wide range of light, like in my shot - the sunshine was VERY bright, the side of the car closest to me was very dark (because of the backlight) - you have to take several shots to expose for the different areas. I took a shot that exposed the sunset correctly, another that exposed the car correctly, etc. To better understand, take a look at these: HDR Image: http://blogs.adobe.com/jnack/images/ChristChurchCathedralHDR.jpg Source frames: http://blogs.adobe.com/jnack/images/CCC_HDR_Frames.jpg
More-or-less. The merging of a series of exposures (from well underexposed to well overexposed) allows the picture to display more. By detail, I don't mean little things that may be out of focus, etc.. I mean things that aren't recorded by the sensor because they're too bright or too dark. Basically, your camera has a fairly small (compared to your eyes, for example) range of light that it can "see" at any given time. So by merging a series of exposures of the same scene together (with transparency, etc.) you artificially create a larger range. The example Mark linked to above is great. I've done a shoot there, I think. Bad timing in my case (sun high overhead), but it's a great spot. A little further south, the Korean Bell Pavilion can be a good spot, though there are often a lot of people there. I haven't really found any good spots in the Manhattan/Hermosa area. I wanted to do a shoot out at the Old Marine Land site (in PV). Dirt roads, construction equipment, etc. would make a nice contrast. Never did it, though. Sure, that could be cool. I haven't really done any car stuff for a while. Been more into nature photos ()I'd like to give it a shot again. Possibly. A couple of my friends are going, so I may make an appearance. Don't know if I'll bring my camera, though.
Hypothetical example I just came up with. HDR is mostly used (as far as I can tell) for scenery. But let's say you want to take a picture of your friend standing in front of a waterfall. It's noon, so the sun is pretty much directly overhead. He's wearing a hat. There are no clouds. You have no flash. With a single exposure, you'll get one of two things. Unless you carefully spot meter his face, the camera will quote optimum exposure (using that little bar graph in the view finder of most digital cameras with manual modes) based on the brightness of the waterfall. So in the picture his face will be dark (it's shadowed by his hat brim). Crappy. Alternately, you meter to his face. That's going to require a longer exposure than the other since his face is shadowed. So in the picture you'll see him, but the waterfall will just be white (it's bright and shining on the sensor). Crappy. But if you put them together, you'll see both the properly exposed waterfall AND your friend's properly exposed face. Of course, that may not be practical since it's unlikely he can sit still enough. But whatever.
