HDR Photography Anyone ?

Just finished reading a Popular Science mag which a client forgot here (
Nice mag ) There was a very brief article on HDR photography where you
take a series of shots, from under exposed, all the way up to over
exposed and pull them into a program like Photomatix or CS3 for
processing. It's not a case of sandwiching them and out pops the perfect
pic.
Has anyone here tried this and is it more suited to certain types of scenes.
The couple of photos in the mag looked fantastic.

Bernard Rother wrote:
Just finished reading a Popular Science mag which a client forgot here (
Nice mag ) There was a very brief article on HDR photography where you
take a series of shots, from under exposed, all the way up to over
exposed and pull them into a program like Photomatix or CS3 for
processing. It's not a case of sandwiching them and out pops the perfect
pic.
Has anyone here tried this and is it more suited to certain types of
scenes.
The couple of photos in the mag looked fantastic.

You will want to use moderation in the settings or it looks surreal.
Often better results can be had from manual blending to simulate or
actually using a graduated neutral density filter. Watch out for halos.
I think the one I liked was dynamicphoto-HDR. The times I want it is
when I don't know I want it and then I rely on working from one raw file
which is OK but not great. For moderate enhancement it's pretty good though.

"Bernard Rother" wrote in message
...
Just finished reading a Popular Science mag which a client forgot here (
Nice mag ) There was a very brief article on HDR photography where you
take a series of shots, from under exposed, all the way up to over exposed
and pull them into a program like Photomatix or CS3 for processing. It's
not a case of sandwiching them and out pops the perfect pic.
Has anyone here tried this and is it more suited to certain types of
scenes.
The couple of photos in the mag looked fantastic.

HDR is only for static objects. Even the high speed DSLR cameras can't take
4 or 5 identical shots of a moving target. Trying to do it with a person
requires them to remain perfectly still while you take several (identically
composed) shots. Just blinking will ruin it.

So the technology looks promising but the application of it is quite
limited.

Douglas

On Dec 5, 9:16 pm, Bernard Rother
wrote:
Just finished reading a Popular Science mag which a client forgot here (
Nice mag ) There was a very brief article on HDR photography where you
take a series of shots, from under exposed, all the way up to over
exposed and pull them into a program like Photomatix or CS3 for
processing. It's not a case of sandwiching them and out pops the perfect
pic.
Has anyone here tried this and is it more suited to certain types of scenes.
The couple of photos in the mag looked fantastic.

Tried it after a club presentation on how-to of HDR. It works, but it
indeed requires special subjects/scenes, and have not had a chance to
try it on a good scene yet. I just shot a series off of back porch
that did not have enough scene dynamic range to make a good result.

One popular use is inside of big cathedrals and churches, where you
can make the interior shadow detail visible without blowing out
windows.

The technique GREATLY reduces contrast- that is the idea- so it does
create a weird surrealistic look- sort of more like a painting than a
normal photo.

It is for static scenes that have inherently a high dynamic range.
Another example is a backlit subject (not a person- they would have to
sit too still. Say a sunrise over a lake, where the lit sky and the
beach/landscape which is very faint can both be visible in the final
print.

Bernard Rother wrote:
Just finished reading a Popular Science mag which a client forgot here (
Nice mag ) There was a very brief article on HDR photography where you
take a series of shots, from under exposed, all the way up to over
exposed and pull them into a program like Photomatix or CS3 for
processing. It's not a case of sandwiching them and out pops the perfect
pic.
Has anyone here tried this and is it more suited to certain types of
scenes.
The couple of photos in the mag looked fantastic.

http://www.flickr.com/photo_zoom.gne...9407711&size=l

Taken with a dirt cheap (and now obselete) Canon a540.

BugBear

Bernard Rother wrote:

Just finished reading a Popular Science mag which a client forgot
here ( Nice mag ) There was a very brief article on HDR photography
where you take a series of shots, from under exposed, all the way up
to over exposed and pull them into a program like Photomatix or CS3
for processing. It's not a case of sandwiching them and out pops the
perfect pic. Has anyone here tried this and is it more suited to
certain types of scenes. The couple of photos in the mag looked
fantastic.

Here are a couple of HDR shots I did of the moon:

http://www.pbase.com/craigbob/image/84712903

http://www.pbase.com/craigbob/image/84712907

--

"Bernard Rother" schrieb im
Newsbeitrag ...
Just finished reading a Popular Science mag which a client forgot here (
Nice mag ) There was a very brief article on HDR photography where you
take a series of shots, from under exposed, all the way up to over exposed
and pull them into a program like Photomatix or CS3 for processing. It's
not a case of sandwiching them and out pops the perfect pic.
Has anyone here tried this and is it more suited to certain types of
scenes.
The couple of photos in the mag looked fantastic.

As others have said, you have to work with static scenes, since the
information should not vary from frame to frame. I was recently up on an
abandoned part of the Great Wall of China, and was shooting from inside one
of the guard houses. Using HDR to blend five exposures one f stop apart
(handheld! but it worked with 5 fps) I was able to get a quite natural
looking result where the bricks on the inside of the (basically completely
dark) guardhouse were visible and just a couple of stops darker than the
outside in broad daylight.

If you are interested have a look he

http://www.renderosity.com/mod/galle...age_id=1384632

Toby

Toby wrote:
[]
If you are interested have a look he

http://www.renderosity.com/mod/galle...age_id=1384632

Toby

Login required.

David

Toby wrote:
"Bernard Rother" schrieb im
Newsbeitrag ...
Just finished reading a Popular Science mag which a client forgot here (
Nice mag ) There was a very brief article on HDR photography where you
take a series of shots, from under exposed, all the way up to over exposed
and pull them into a program like Photomatix or CS3 for processing. It's
not a case of sandwiching them and out pops the perfect pic.
Has anyone here tried this and is it more suited to certain types of
scenes.
The couple of photos in the mag looked fantastic.

As others have said, you have to work with static scenes, since the
information should not vary from frame to frame.

It's even possible (but hard) to push that limitation, via
alignment softwa

http://www.luxal.eu/resources/hdr/hd...tutorial.shtml

BugBear

Bernard Rother wrote:
Just finished reading a Popular Science mag which a client forgot here (
Nice mag ) There was a very brief article on HDR photography where you
take a series of shots, from under exposed, all the way up to over
exposed and pull them into a program like Photomatix or CS3 for
processing. It's not a case of sandwiching them and out pops the perfect
pic.
Has anyone here tried this and is it more suited to certain types of
scenes.
The couple of photos in the mag looked fantastic.

I agree with others that HDR needs to be toned down a bit or else it can
look cartoonish. Landscape, static scenes can look quite good though,
if the settings are right:

http://www.pbase.com/newbert/image/88088960/large

If you want to try Photomatix, you can download a free trial nad make an
unlimited number of images. However, the trial version will put
watermarks all over them.