Cretan Images - HDR images, Hand-Held, Pseudo and Photomatix 3.2

[David]

Crete in summer during daylight hours is full of high contrast scenes with deep shadows and bright colours. In other words, a very large dynamic range suitable for HDR image acquisition. Unfortunately, during my sojourn there was little opportunity to stop and take several images with a camera securely set upon sturdy tripod (non-photographers get bored for some unknown reason, with me taking twenty minutes to set up a shot that takes a couple of seconds).

Consequently, I have experimented with hand-held bracketed exposures using the rapid continuous shoot option on the Canon 40D. This first image is a typical result, processed using Photomatix Pro ver. 3.2 with ghost removal and a general natural look treatment.



There is blurring of the flower heads on the RHS, but otherwise the image seems not too bad for overall exposure and toning.

The second and third images show the original single shot exposure of a typical shadowed street scene in Chania Old Town together with the pseudo-HDR tone-mapped image using Photomatix Pro 3.2, again with a natural look in mind. There may be other techniques to obtain the enhanced image, but Photomatix processing is quick and versatile.





Note that some further post-processing was used to account for perspective and sharpening needs.

Comments and criticisms are welcome as always.

Cheers

David

[wjh31]

The first looks so natural compared to many HDR images i see, i like it.

Regarding the set of two, i think i prefer the first, the second looks like it might be a bit oversaturated.

[Dave Humphries]

Hi David,

I do quite like the result in No.3, e.g. all the extra detail I can see easily in the shadows, but I agree with wjh31, it is rather over-saturated for my taste. Otherwise it gets my vote over No.2, which although ok, lacks the PP work you've done in No.3 and perhaps some contrast in the shadows.

No.1 may also be over-saturated, however that's not my issue with it; I can't put my finger on it, but the cliff face just looks a little unnatural. I'm not sure if it is a lack of contrast or something as simple as WB, is it perhaps a shade magenta? Although it could be an optical illusion caused by the mass of green on the right hand side (or may be it really was that colour!).

Cheers,

[David]

Thanks for the comments, guys. Saturation is clearly an issue in the minaret pseudo-HDR shot and if I were printing this up I might one it down a little.

Regarding the gorge photo, the cliff might well be a bit magenta, but as I've posted before, I do seem to have a problem seeing pink/magenta casts. I'll have to think some more about how to check and overcome this problem. The cliff face did have a range of colours in it, but looking at a single exposure in bright sun shows mainly grey tones. Close examination on the spot (I try to pick out what minerals are present in rocky places) showed limestone inclusions with ochre tints (possibly from iron oxide). So the HDR derived image is giving a possibly more accurate rendition even if by eye we would have seen mostly grey.

Anyway, thanks again for your helpful comments.

David