Any HDR tips? :((

[Pia Cardeno]

Hey! I just wanna ask for any tips or advice with regards to HDR Photography.

I've read the how-to's and the tutorials but, I just wanna ask for tips, 'cause I reckon it's better to get lots of input.

I've been a photographer for a year now, and before, when I was just a couple months into Photography I've always known bout HDR Photography but I veered away from it 'cause it seemed so daunting at what not but a couple of days ago I saw this deviantART, and it really made me go wow. They were HDRs, and it's just really stunning. The balance of the shades in the photos and stuff. I told myself I wanna learn it too!

So anyway, nuff bout the long intro. Hehe. If anyone happens to drop by my thread, please gimme some advice. ( Like, how many exposures/photos will give me fair results and those stuff. D:

Thanks!

Pia

[alvarito]

maybe this can help you:

ZeroNoise

[arith]

At least 3 exposures at least 1 ev apart, but of course you don't want a change of perspective so if you need more exposures be very careful when re-setting the camera.

Always shoot in RAW; put a grey card in one of the shots so that you can adjust colour balance.

Fix AF to manual, well I think that is about it apart from looking at the histogram and keep taking pics until the left edge of the graph is clearly moving off the bottom, well you know what I mean.

[Shadowman]

Look for something interesting to photograph and experiment with new themes.

[Pia Cardeno]

At least 3 exposures at least 1 ev apart, but of course you don't want a change of perspective so if you need more exposures be very careful when re-setting the camera.

Always shoot in RAW; put a grey card in one of the shots so that you can adjust colour balance.

Fix AF to manual, well I think that is about it apart from looking at the histogram and keep taking pics until the left edge of the graph is clearly moving off the bottom, well you know what I mean.

Why fix the AF to manual?

I tried shooting an HDR Photo. http://thepiacardeno.tumblr.com/post...5301/samplehdr But, don't mind the composition. Hehe. I just wanted to try out the processing.

I used 5 exposures on this one. -2, -1, 0, +1, and +2. I've read that more exposures mean more accurate dynamic range. I did this on Adobe Photoshop CS3.

I keep seeing people suggesting Photomatix as a MUST in making HDRs, but some say Photoshop's better.

[David]

Hi Pia - Tip #1 - check out all the previous posts here on HDR.
Tip #2 - check that your chosen scenes actually have a dynamic range greater than that of your camera.
Tip #3 - try Picturenaut for free powerful software (Google and ye shall find).
Tip #4 - don't listen to HDR detractors, it's a tool like everything else, so play away to your heart's content.

Cheers

David

[arith]

Looks alright to me; and fixing the focus well it can't hurt and at least it won't stop half way through due to not be able to focus.

[Dave Humphries]

Why fix the AF to manual?

Hi Pia,

If you don't, the camera may well try to AF each shot individually - if it makes a different focus decision, the image size recorded will slightly different size (just like a tiny zoom adjustment was made), so when you try to merge all the shots, it'll cause a blurred result.

Cheers,

[Dave Humphries]

Hey! I just wanna ask for any tips or advice with regards to HDR Photography.

I've read the how-to's and the tutorials but, I just wanna ask for tips, 'cause I reckon it's better to get lots of input.

I've been a photographer for a year now, and before, when I was just a couple months into Photography I've always known bout HDR Photography but I veered away from it 'cause it seemed so daunting at what not but a couple of days ago I saw this deviantART, and it really made me go wow. They were HDRs, and it's just really stunning. The balance of the shades in the photos and stuff. I told myself I wanna learn it too!

So anyway, nuff bout the long intro. Hehe. If anyone happens to drop by my thread, please gimme some advice. ( Like, how many exposures/photos will give me fair results and those stuff.

Hi again Pia,

It depends what result you want.
Perhaps a link to one or two images you want to imitate would help us.

True HDR is about capturing a scene where the dynamic range of the things in the image are beyond the capability of the sensor to capture in a single exposure. There is an implication that the end result will still be a realistic looking image. If that's all you want to do and you're doing it manually in say CS3, then fewer shots spaced further apart will do (e.g. +2, 0 and -2) as I doubt the difference between that and a 5 shot span at one stop intervals will be visible in the final result.

However, many people 'out there' use the tools to achieve a more 'artistic' result, which usually results from a bizarre tone mapping into the output file's dynamic range that puts halos around things on the sky's horizon. In particular, many swear by Photomatrix because they want the strange effect and the defaults seem to readily produce them - it's not to my taste personally. The people that want this effect often mistakenly/confusingly call this ultra tone mapped effect "HDR", but it isn't and that drives a lot of people nuts.

Me, I'm nuts

Cheers,