HDR photography anyone? (pics inside)

Jourles

Does anyone employ HDR(High Dynamic Range) photography in their bag of tricks? In a nutshell, you take several photos of the same scene but at different exposures - from dark to very light(your aperture needs to remain exactly the same). You then merge them together. The finished photo contains extreme amounts of detail and appears almost hyper-realistic. I've been meaning to do this for a while now and so today I set out to try my hand at it and see what I could come up with. The clouds were ideal and our trees are a little past peak but still usable. Here are a few of my results:

I could kick myself on this one. I had just placed my tripod and tightened everything down. When I was peering through the viewfinder, I immediately saw what appeared to be a "halo" right above his head. Seeing that you don't always get a chance to get that kind of a photo, I ran through a bunch of shots and then realized that my white balance wasn't set correctly for this capture. In the meantime, the clouds were moving and breaking up. So by the time I set my WB and reverified focus, this is what I ended up with. You can actually see where the cloud portion to the right is breaking away and then to the left it is fading. Amazing what you can miss in the course of 1 minute. This was taken in a cemetary.

This one is from a slightly different viewpoint. I wanted this picture to convey, "Jesus is coming, you'd better look busy!" Sort of a scare poster for churchgoers - to remind them that Jesus isn't all about love and happiness. Afterall, he's coming back to kick some ass, right?

This is just downriver from my house. I probably should have come to this spot about two weeks ago while our trees were at peak color. But like I said, the cloud cover today was awesome for this style of photography. A clear sky just doesn't have the same effect.

So is anyone else into HDR? Have any pics you'd like to share?

TJ - iAmCleared2Land

Nice picture! I'd not heard of HDR photography before your post. Apparently the new version of Photoshop CS2 supports "merge to HDR" functionality. I found a pool of HDR photos on flickr, you can find it with a Google search on "HDR photography", on the first page of the results. I liked this one:

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Satanus

That's really cool. I like the one w the halo above jesus. It reminds me of a background i did in a church. How much time between photographs, and which program do you use for merging. I did a bit of what is called stitching. It's the putting together of a bunch of photographs. The canon camera i had, had a program to do it automatically.

S

Vinny

HDR is definitely becoming more widely used today. But I have still found success taking just one photo at a time, properly exposed. Also HDR needs specific conditions to work. For example a windy day can make any kind of landscape impossible since you need all three images to be theidentical. Any movement will cause a loss of sharpness for that particular portion of the image. You must use a tripod as well... obviously.

I amost always use a tripod and always bracket three images at a time. One at a normal exposure, and then two others; 1/3 of a stop in each direction. Still, I have never found the need to combine the three into one. There has always been one of the three that was close to perfect for that particular need. Some today actually prefer HDR for sunsets or images with bright clouds. Still in my opinion, using a neutral density filter accomplishes the very same thing without all of the extra work and risks of combining the three.\

Now, using the very same technique to create a panoramic, by capturing a series of images from one side to the other, and then stitching them together for a rue panoramic is smashingly successful for many photographers today. I may join in doing that soon, once I make the switch to digital. But with film, it's a real pain of a process. Scanning makes it very time consuming and challenging to get first rate results.

Good luck with your shooting!

Magick

Jourles, your photos are awesome!

here's one i found:

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Jourles

How much time between photographs, and which program do you use for merging.

As far as time goes, most dSLRs have a feature called "bracketing" which automatically adjusts the exposure from -2.0/+2.0 for you and fires off a sequence of shots with those settings. I decided to do it the manual way(so I can become more familiar with the technique). Using Aperture Priority mode(the depth of field needs to stay the same!), I set the WB with my exposure at 0.0. I then underexposed at -2.0 snapped the pic, adjusted the exposure to -1.3, snapped the pic, etc. until I got up to +2.0. The time between shots was probably 2-3 seconds. I probably will use the bracketing feature next time seeing that it keeps my hands off the camera.(I'm using a corded remote with tripod) This gave me a nice selection of shots to combine from. All of these are taken in RAW mode as well. I also turned off image stabilization since it's on a tripod.

For post processing, I use Corel's Paint Shop Pro Photo X2. I've been using Jasc for a long time and Corel happens to own them now. I've used Adobe Photoshop, but I can do everything in X2 that I can in PS without the high price that comes with it. A great little side program to have is the Nik filter/effect software - it also acts as a plugin for X2. Amazing stuff.

Leolaia

I have just started to experiment with image stacking mainly to reduce noise and bring out detail (see my photo of the comet currently in the sky in a recent thread), but I haven't tried it yet with varying exposures to broaden the camera's dynamic range. I've wanted to try this out, so I may do this on my next trip.

Jourles

As an example, here are the three shots that I combined for the river shot:

In X2, you are allowed to bring in (I believe) around 15 shots. You can then pick and choose which photos you'd like to merge together. And as Vinny pointed out, stillness in the sequence is extremely important. Wind blown bushes and tree limbs will blur the result you're looking for. Shooting handheld won't work due to movement. This type of photography is really designed for landscapes. Very rarely will you ever see a person in them unless they are sleeping or are aware of what is taking place and they know not to move.

Vinny, I agree that a properly exposed shot is ideal, but the surreal appearance of HDR is pretty fascinating to look at you gotta admit.

Leolaia

I do notice tho quite a bit of noise in some of these shots. I would suggest, if possible, taking 8 photos at each exposure level, to average them out when they are stacked. If it is a static scene, that would nicely get rid most of the random noise. But of course, that only works with scenes without moving elements.

Jourles

I have just started to experiment with image stacking mainly to reduce noise and bring out detail

Are you using a point-and-shoot or a (d)slr? Are you letting the camera determine its own ISO? If you can, lower the ISO to less than 600-800. The lower the better and the less noise you'll see in the photo. Shooting night or dimly lit shots is tricky - especially if you want them to turn out good. In this area, good glass will help you go far. Compensating by increasing your camera's sensitivity(ISO) helps give you that low light boost but also introduces noise. That's the thing with photography, there are so many tradeoffs you have to put up with. An image stabilized lens or camera body also helps give you those few extra stops of light. White balance is probably one of the most important aspects in getting good shots. Most cameras do a good job these days with choosing the right WB according to the situation you're in, but if you can, it's always best to manually set it up if you have the right accessories handy.

HDR photography anyone? (pics inside)

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