HDR Imaging

[KingSmono]

Wow, those are some amazing images. I have to say Stillphoto's beach-scene is my favorite.

And looks like we had the same idea Saaby! I took 5 AEB shots, and created an HDR pic of our Christmas Tree. I like how it "glows" and almost looks "magical". Some people definitely prefer the more natural look though.


Here's the original shot:

And here's the HDR version:

 

[Stillphoto]

Praying for good skys this afternoon/evening. I'll see what I can drum up with my 5DmkII.

One thing is for sure, I've mostly done "natural" looking hdrs to this point. I'd like something a bit more surreal, and I think the best, if not only way to achieve that is a good number of bracketed images.

 

[KingSmono]

Praying for good skys this afternoon/evening. I'll see what I can drum up with my 5DmkII.

One thing is for sure, I've mostly done "natural" looking hdrs to this point. I'd like something a bit more surreal, and I think the best, if not only way to achieve that is a good number of bracketed images.

Yeah, I haven't played too much with 3 bracketed images vs 5, etc... I just figured the more the better.

I'm so jealous about your camera though... One of these days I'll have a Full-Frame Canon DSLR!! Have you had any of the dreaded "black dots" that have plagued the 5DmkII's?? I have a feeling that the problem isn't nearly as bad as the DPF forums make it sound.

Anyway, the lenses I buy for my 40D are purchased with the idea that one day I'll upgrade to a full-frame. (35L, 135L) One day... one day...

 

[Stillphoto]

Hey man, I know how you feel about not being full frame, I've been shooting with the 20D for a long time now. Great lens choices...drooling over them.

The "black dots" issue- It's a peculiar thing for sure. I shot a night time image of a building, with plenty of specular highlights and bright points. Not a single black spot near any of them. When I looked at the stars in the sky, they were there! Overall, totally a non-issue to me, blown a bit out of proportion. Canon has already sent out an email to me (and I assume anyone else that has registered their 5DmkII's) stating that they are working on the firmware update that will get rid of the dots.

Back to our regularly scheduled programming! Anyone going to start sharing Photomatix settings? lol

 

[monkeyboy]

EDIT: Deleted

On second thoughts, I better not post that. sorry

 

[Saaby]

Sumo...

Delicious! I like your HDR Christmas tree a lot. I think the twinkley mini-white lights work a lot better than my surreal colorful ones.

As for cameras...I just got myself a Pentax K100D. It's a bit older model, but Woot was selling the body for $240 a few weeks back, so I figured how could I NOT finally jump into the dSLR world.

It's no 5DmkII, but I'm pretty thrilled so far. I was thrilled to get a body for under $250, and even more thrilleden I walked into a local thrift shop and found a ~20 year old Sears 80-200mm lens for it...$10. Sure you have to do some things manually, like set the aperture, focus, and then tell the camera what focal-length you're shooting at for the in-body shake-reduction to work right...with the 20 year old lens...but it's a ton of fun.

(I didn't take that photo with the sears 80-200 though, it was taken with a 28-80 borrowed from a friend. My Pentax 'kit' 18-55mm lens will arrive Friday. Again, hardly a zeiss high-speed prime, but a lot higher value!)

 

[Stillphoto]

MkII shot from the other day:

Some older shots that I realized might be more interesting converted to hdr:

 

[Trashman]

Wow, Norcal & Stillphoto, you guys posted some sick examples of HDR. Absolutely AWESEOME!

These are the only two I ever did. I bought the cheapest camera that I could find ($84, shipped, which was cheap back then) that had the bracketing feature, so I could play around with HDR photos, but I never really played around as much as I had planned. I got the idea right here, on CPF, after seeing some examples posted by AWR. It's been in my mind, all along, though, that I'd start playing around with it again. These two photos are actually aready posted on CPF, but I don't know where to find them. It was probably a couple of years ago.

EDIT:
Looks like there's one more of the same, but different:

I made these using Photomatix, BTW.

 

[jch79]

I'm an architectural photographer by trade, and although I own all the lighting equipment, it's a PITA to lug around and move, adjust, tweak, etc. - so when HDR really became accessible and easy, I was all over it!

I like HDR because it can get really natural results - much closer to what our eyes actually see, than what our camera tries to accomplish with one exposure. You don't lose the highlights, and you keep the shadows. How Ansel Adams would have loved HDR!

This isn't a great example, but I wanted to show a bit of the view outside (too much can be distracting), while obviously showcasing the office. This photo would've been a wee tricky without HDR, or a serious amount of lights to counter-balance the sunlight oozing in.

As for flashlight photography (and studio/product photography in general), I find that nothing beats a quality lighting setup... although when a tricky situation comes along, I prefer masking a portion of the light in from a different exposure of the same scene:

Fred's beautiful Titanium Luce de Notte - with the 18mm sphere - is a bit tricky to photograph, so I took a photo with studio lights on, for the exterior, then a longer exposure with the lights off, to show off the glow from the tritium. Then I layered the two photos together in Photoshop, pasting the trit'd area over the lighted photo.

Great thread, cool pics, and great technology!
:thumbsup: john

 

[Archie Cruz]

Yes. Automated HDR is a boon. Never thought I'd see it in my lifetime. I used to do it a lot manually in Photoshop. But the best is yet to come. Imagine HDR VIDEO processing!

 

[Kiessling]

John ... simply great. Awesome and natural pics. :bow: :thumbsup:

 

[jch79]

Thanks BK! It was your HDR beamshot thread that pointed me here - I rarely venture out of the custom forums, which makes me wonder how much I miss! :shrug:
:wave: Hope all is well with you, my friend!
:thumbsup: john

 

[Saaby]

John,

How did you accomplish such a natural looking shot in that office? As we were discussing earlier, HDR is nice but sometimes ends up looking surreal -- I'm wondering what trick or technique you use to achieve HDR that is natural and neutral.

 

[jch79]

John,

How did you accomplish such a natural looking shot in that office? As we were discussing earlier, HDR is nice but sometimes ends up looking surreal -- I'm wondering what trick or technique you use to achieve HDR that is natural and neutral.

Hi Saaby,

I call my process "Blended HDR":
Basically, I first make a "blended exposure" (which gives much more natural results) image with an actual HDR image (which really pops the shadow and highlight details), both created in Photomatix Pro. Then I layer them together in Photoshop, with a little bit of tweaking here and there of the levels, and shadows & highlights if needed.

The process sounds a bit tedious, but since Photomatix has automated processes now, I can batch process a bunch of images in Photomatix, and work on the already processed ones in Photoshop, all at the same time. The key to neutral/natural HDR's is to not go crazy on the strength or saturation - I still want to see some shadows!

I coulda gone overboard with the highlights outside, or showing the dark area way in the back lobby, but chose to keep it more subtle, which in the end, gives it more depth and mimics what our eyes see - or at least what my eyes see! :duh2:

I can't wait for in-camera HDR to get better - so we can select a type/strength of HDR (or blended exposure), and get good results right away. oo:

:thumbsup: john

 

[jch79]

BTW, Robb, beautiful night HDR's! :twothumbs I hadn't thought about using HDR for night photography... although I don't often get out to do night photography, due to the laziness that lurks inside of me!

Something to point out about your HDR's is that, while they'd most certainly HDR photos, they almost have a transcendental quality to them - like how our eyes want to see something. Grand!

:wave: john

 

[Kiessling]

mimics what our eyes see

Yes. That's exactly the point why I started the HDR-beamshot thread.

To overcome the limitations of the camera and make it all look like my eyes and brain make me see it. Not trivial it seems

Again ... stunning photos you did. And I really dig the nighttime HDR sceneries, too.

bernie

 

[KingSmono]

Amazing shots John. When you do "batch processing" in Photomatix, do you use the same settings for every HDR image you create? If so, would you mind sharing/sending those Photomatix settings?? I'd love to play around with your "Blended HDR" technique, and try to create some natural HDR pics of my own. So far almost all of mine have come out with that "dreamy/surreal" look. I happen to like it that way, but I'd also like to be able to create natural looking HDR pics as well!

Here are a couple I took from dock at my Grandma's Mountain House in South Carolina, where my wife and I stayed for New Year's.

 

[Kiessling]

Those are not that dreamy IMHO. Like postcards maybe. Very good.

 

[jch79]

When you do "batch processing" in Photomatix, do you use the same settings for every HDR image you create? If so, would you mind sharing/sending those Photomatix settings??

Yup, same setting for all of 'em. Sometimes there will be a tricky one that needs special treatment, but usually, I can get away with running most of 'em through the batch.

I don't have any images to process, and can't figure out a way to open up your settings without having some photos to work on, so I'll just say this: My settings are very close to the defaults, with the strength and saturation both down a couple of notches on the HDR, and the white point and black point bumped up the slightest of bits as well - everything else is left untouched! The blended exposure settings are just kept at "Adjust" - not Auto.

The key, in my mind, is the layering in Photoshop - I layer the HDR image over the Blended Exposure image, and put the HDR at only around 20-25% transparency - sometimes up to 50%, sometimes only 10% (or none at all), but usually 20-25% is good. The exposure blended images are much more natural as it is, and layering the HDR gives the slightest hint of that warm, HDR look, without making it so dreamy, as you put it!

Check out this video: http://www.danachatz.com/video, which talks mostly about Photomatix (after a minute or so intro), and what the most-used settings do to affect the HDR image. Dan is a photographer who shoots HDR residential real estate photography in Seattle, and he did this video as a guest blogger for the owner of the Photography for Real Estate blog. Dan's technique is a little different than mine, but his results are always nice.

:wave: john

 

[Jarl]

Interesting. I caught an HDR tutorial on another forum I was visiting... IMHO, HDR can makes things look like they do in modern video games, which makes me wonder how far away we are from perfectly realistic games.....

I prefer non HDR for most shots, but for some shots I can see why it's preferred