HDR - first effort

[Kentboy]

C&C welcome

5dII, 17-40@25mm, f16, iso400 - 3 images

[Donald]

Brian

I think that is a very, very nice image. It shows the lovely rich tones of the floor and the furniture. And not the 'overcooked' application of HDR processing that some people like, but which I do not.

[Kentboy]

Many thanks for your kind comments - here is the second of my series from Leeds Castle

[jiro]

Good work on the HDR, Brian. Definitely, LESS is MORE. Your #1 image is great. As for the #2, the highlights seems to be too 'hot' for me. I'd probably recommend you play with the highlights slider and tone it down a little bit. Nice work! Cheers!

[Shadowman]

Brian,

Very subtle use of HDR. The second needs a little more contrast. Nice images.

[Peter Ryan]

Nice to see some control in HDR and I agree with the above comments. Good work.

[MiniChris]

I like the first one much more than the second one as it is just at that "edgy" state where everything becomes overamplified. How many brackets did you use in each?

[Kentboy]

I like the first one much more than the second one as it is just at that "edgy" state where everything becomes overamplified. How many brackets did you use in each?

The first picture used 3 photos the second I used 1 shot and autogenerated 5 shots. I convert the RAW (from DPP) into 16 bit TIFF and then merge them. I am using HDR Efex Pro to merge them and then PSE to convert the output TIFF into JPEG. I am using HDR just to get HDR not for artistic effects.

The second looks significantly better printed than it does on the monitor - I have it at A3 from my Epson R1400.

Here is the 3rd, again from 1 shot and 5 generated images. It looks superb at A3 but detail is lost in displaying at lower resilution.

[Colin Southern]

Hi Brian,

If the final image comes from a single source capture then it's not really HDR, as the 5 files you're processing the RAW file into can't contain any more dynamic range than the original RAW file already has.

In reality, what you're actually doing is using HDR tools to tone-map the info already captured, so probably more correct to call the single-exposure shots as "ultra tone-mapped"

[Kentboy]

Looks like common vernacular is confusing me - I often see references to single file HDR. Thanks for the explaination.

Ultra tone-mapped results certainly are an improvement over standard IMHO.

I like the first HDR shot and will be using that technique much more in the future as I am looking to do more still life and still life macro work.

The mind boggles at the thought of focus stacked HDR pictures of say a flower

[Colin Southern]

Hi Brian,

We've had a few discussions about this in the past, so you might find this, this, and this of interest.

The mind boggles at the thought of focus stacked HDR pictures of say a flower

Focus stacking could well produce an extended DoF, but the dynamic range would probably be only 6 or so stops, and thus easily handled in a single capture. Don't forget that most modern cameras are already capturing around 11 or 12 stops of dynamic range - it's just that we don't have any way to display or print such a range, so we use techniques to compress that range into around 4 to 6 stops so we can print / view the range.

[Kentboy]

Thanks Colin.

#1 I deliberately did as 3 shots because it was impossible to get the interior sorted at the same time as the bright windows.

Now I am a bit confused as surely this is not HDR but a composite using parts out of each to do tone mapping to make the picture look good?

I am really pleased with the results as it means that the lens, camera and tripod have worked well together as the level of detail at A3 is quite astonishing to me. My objective is to get natural looking pictures like #1 where the range of light to dark is too great to represent where the eye can see it. Very interesting stuff.

Thanks for the links - made interesting (but slightly confusing) reading.

[Colin Southern]

#1 I deliberately did as 3 shots because it was impossible to get the interior sorted at the same time as the bright windows.

Now I am a bit confused as surely this is not HDR but a composite using parts out of each to do tone mapping to make the picture look good?

Hi Brian,

HDR is a technique (or a set of techniques) for handling a range of brightnesses that are too great to capture in a single exposure, so taking 3 shots at 3 different exposures would be a valid HDR technique, but taking a single shot and re-processing that into 3 different "exposures" wouldn't be (because the 3 processed shots can't contain any more range than the original capture that they're based on; if highlights are truely blown then the detail isn't recorded in the capture, and same goes for shadows if they're mixed in with the noise floor, so re-processing into different files with different levels can't suddenly & magically make information appear that wasn't present to begin with).

Having just said that, sometimes - often even - making multiple copies from a single RW capture can make the data easier to manipulate, but that still doesn't make it HDR.

A lot of people just don't realise how much information is actually captured in a single RAW exposure though; often you can just expose for the brightest parts of a scene (say the light coming through a window) and then use a program such as Adobe Camera RAW (fill light control) to raise the levels of the shadow detail to a point where we can see it on our screens; so it's information that looks like it wasn't captured (because we can't see it), but it's often there all the same. The downside is that the more you raise these deep dark areas, the more noise that becomes visible, and thus at a certain point, using multiple exposures delivers a visibly cleaner result.

Does that help?

[Kentboy]

Yes - thanks