HDR fun
 

Ok, so I joined awhile ago, lurked around a bit, and now I figure I'll go ahead and post something.

Here are some HDR shots. Everything was taken with a Canon Digital Rebel XT and range from 3 to 9 exposures. Photomatix was used for the HDR processing. Enjoy (and let me know what you think)!

Capitol Building, Lincoln, Nebraska:
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/zuiun/527147431/" title="Photo Sharing"><img src="http://farm1.static.flickr.com/214/527147431_b37e1c4847.jpg" width="333" height="500" alt="Lincoln Nebraska Capitol HDR 8" /></a>

Capitol Building, Lincoln, Nebraska:
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/zuiun/527098831/" title="Photo Sharing"><img src="http://farm1.static.flickr.com/228/527098831_bd0043636d.jpg" width="500" height="333" alt="Lincoln Nebraska Capitol HDR 5" /></a>

Downtown Lincoln, Nebraska - seconds before a downpour:
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/zuiun/527074982/" title="Photo Sharing"><img src="http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1004/527074982_a72c6188e3.jpg" width="417" height="500" alt="Downtown Lincoln Nebraska HDR" /></a>

Downtown Lincoln, Nebraska - seconds before a downpour (different day than the above):
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/zuiun/504040238/" title="Photo Sharing"><img src="http://farm1.static.flickr.com/202/504040238_e0061549aa.jpg" width="333" height="500" alt="Approaching storm" /></a>

-- Robert

wow amazing, what kind of lens did you use?

i can never seem to get photomatix to work correctly :(... maybe i should get off of bracketing mode and try manually exposing?

The seconds before a downpour picture is incredible - the detail of the clouds in particular.

I was packing light that day, so I was only shooting with the XT's kit lens. But I think it did Ok. :)

All of those shots were bracketed 3-shot bursts at +2 / 0 / -2. For the interior shots, I also adjusted the exposure up and down and took additional 3-shot bursts for a total of 9 different exposures. (Everything was set up on a sturdy tripod and I was using a shutter cable to minimize camera movement.)

-- Robert

Very cool. Nice job!

Sweet man. I always forget when I am out to bracket so that I can try HDR. I do look forward to trying it soon.

But yah the third is my favorite. Its beautiful.

That last one is perfect. :)

I love the HDR effect. It makes things so surreal. Great pics

what version of photomatix are you using?

also, when you take the raw from you camera, youre not supposed to change anything right? leave everything default. ->save to jpeg, then do the photomatix thing?

Great photos. The last two looked like photos taken many years ago. Neat effect. The interior lighting in the last one really made the shot.

If you use Photomatix, you can get away with a couple of "Poor man's HDR" effects. The HDR process is actually two stages: The first is the combining of several differently exposed shots to create a high dynamic range image. This image is, essentially, useless as a photo because it contains too much information for screen or print -- so it just looks terrible. The second step is Tone Mapping, which applies selective tone ranges throughout the image to create something viewable.

Because a RAW file contains more information than a standard image file, Photomatix can tone map a RAW file to create a wider dynamic range. A more manual way of doing it would be to save out several copies of the RAW file, each with over or under exposure compensation (most RAW processing software will let you adjust exposure).

This is extremely handy for being able to get an HDR-like image from an action/people shot because it only requires you to use one RAW file. However, it is not a true high dynamic range image, and using a single file tends to amplify the noise in the image.


I'm using 2.2.2 -- I probably should upgrade, but I'm kind of used to the controls of this version and they changed a few things around in the latest upgrade.

As for RAW processing, there are a number of things you can do. With Photomatix, you can batch process the RAW images. Or you can convert the RAWs into a more standard format (I convert them to TIFF rather than JPEG, because TIFF is lossless).

If I'm shooting in really low light, and therefore require a high ISO, I may process the images BEFORE using Photomatix -- running them through NoiseNinja or something to get rid of the ISO noise. It just depends.

great photos!!