Anyone into HDR?

[breutus]

I have a canon digital XTi and this stuff looks awesome!!! I have never seen anything like it I tried to do it tonight though and seemed to have no luck can some one tell me how far the exposure should be set apart, and what mode I should be using. I tried it on the A-dep mode and the manual mode with the auto bracketing set at 2/3 step, the picture ended up really ugly wierd when I just used the generate hdr mode in photmatrix

 

[IPT]

For the moon, snow, sunrise, those shots are each 2 stops apart. I had bracketed in 1 stop increments but they were to close I thought in value. I did mine manually though using masks in PS (which presumably is what the software does). I found I didn't use much of the first image as the extreme brightness of the snow and trees compared to the rest of the image IMO would have made it way too unrealiastic (though I did grab a little out of it, particularly the pine cones in the upper left). I like dramatic, not totally unbelieveable. I applied slight sharpening in the RAW conversion, then sharpened the final image once the layers were merged. I accidently was shooting at ISO 800 from a prior shoot. There was a decent amount of noise so I didn't sharpen the sky and just went back to sharpen the moon. Got a little sloppy there...

 

[Slakker]

Decided to take a real quick run at it today instead of studying for the IT Systems final I have in about 20 minutes...oh well...

Found the most interesting thing in my apartment that doesn't move around much and took some shots in aperture mode at -2, 0, +2 and then merged into HDR with CS3's automated process. Wanted to play around with Photomatix a bit but I have to run take that exam

First image is the shot at 0, the second is the HDR version.

 

[Slakker]

And finally the Photomatix interpretation...

I think my subject matter was kind of lacking in detail to actually become anything impressive with HDR applied (or i did it wrong...)

 

[breutus]

thanks IPT

I found some stuff around the house to shoot and I think I am starting to get the hang of it

here is two of my guitar!

 

[IPT]

Slakker - actually where I see Photomatrix (PM) did the best is on the metal base that the blue lamps sit on. WOuld like to see them side by side, but it appears to have more gradations and less solid black areas. If there was any details here it could have made an even bigger difference. Could you post the -2,0, and +2 side by side? PM certainly did better than the automated PS. Wonder how I would have done manually.

Breutus - looks good. What did the original exposures look like?

 

[Slakker]

Here we go

 

[IPT]

The Photomatix did quite a nice job. I am sure it is also a lot more user friendly than doing it manually. I had to do a lot of masking and it was a pain due to all the jaged edges in my image. Looks good

 

[klepto]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=13915034#post13915034 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by beerguy
I really depends on the frame of reference. I'm not a journalist; my pictures are my artistic representation of a scene. The problem is in the notion that "film is real and digital is not." The camera, no matter what format, simply doesn't see the world the same way that the eye does. Filters, and HDR, are methods to reconcile the differences between the two. Even a polarizer does things to the light that isn't "real." While I rarely do HDR in software (and have none of it in my portfolio) I, basically, do HDR in hardware on a regular basis. This image:

http://images.hopdog.com/monterey_5856-Edit.jpg


is recording 11 stops of information in a single frame. The camera, by itself, couldn't see that without manipulation. Likewise there's the aspect of stopping, compressing or accumulating time that they eye just can't do.

Ansel Adams manipulated his images very heavily in the darkroom yet no one questions it because it was film. He used the analogy that the capture/negative is like a musical score. The real performance is the print and your interpretation of that score. If he were alive today, he'd be shooting digital and working in Photoshop.

When it's all said and done, it's really just a matter of personal taste. Photography is art so, thankfully, everyone has a different preference. Ultimately you need to decide what appeals to you and what method achieves the goal that you're trying to obtain.

Well put Doug - I couldn't agree more.

 

[gkyle]

I just tried the Photomatrix with my new D90, simple pic of a bottle in front of my tank, but I really like the results. Next I'll try it on something more challenging.

 

[boodlefish]

that is the sickest elos omega bottle i have ever seen!

dose this HDR thingy require a DSLR or would "with some adjustments" a nice PS work? i am contemplating between rebel xsi and G 10 and this could possible help me decide.

 

[gkyle]

I'd think you can get the same results with a PS camera, the only trick is getting it to exposure bracket at least three shots, in the same position.

 

[TitusvileSurfer]

The text on the bottle is out of focus because of the DOF. Cool effect but I would try a narrower aperture.

 

[gkyle]

True enough, I didn't take much time worrying about focus as I just wanted to try the HDR software. Also, I wanted the tank behind it to stay out of focus.