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Post by Sydney on Feb 24, 2018 3:10:18 GMT
Fantastic shots bailey - I especially like the first one.
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Post by tonyw on Feb 24, 2018 21:40:41 GMT
Gave up waiting for a break in the clouds so thought I'd see what HDR would do on a dull day. Three exposure blend and HDR'd in Photoshop.  Tony |
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Post by Bailey on Feb 25, 2018 0:59:02 GMT
Fantastic shots bailey - I especially like the first one. Thank you Sydney. |
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Post by Sepiana on Feb 25, 2018 1:15:18 GMT
Gave up waiting for a break in the clouds so thought I'd see what HDR would do on a dull day. Three exposure blend and HDR'd in Photoshop. Tony, glad you gave up waiting and came up with this amazing image. Great composition and a perfect example of what HDR is all about. Another job well done (as usual)! |
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Post by Bailey on Feb 25, 2018 2:38:58 GMT
Hi Tony,
I haven't done and HDR processing but I was always under the impression HDR was best suited for scenes where their dynamic range was greater that what the camera can handle. I would have thought that any dslr camera could handle the dynamic range of scenes under overcast skies.
Did you take a photo of the scene using the camera's metering system to try to capture the scene's dynamic range in a single exposure? If yes, it would be nice to see the comparison between the HDR and non HDR image.
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Post by Bailey on Feb 25, 2018 4:13:28 GMT
Personally, and that is just me, I am not a fan of HDR processing unless it is absolutely required when the dynamic range of a scene exceeds the camera's capability. For anyone interested in HDR processing, I found this really interesting article on HDR Photography - When to Use It and When Not To Use It. |
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Post by tonyw on Feb 25, 2018 23:20:04 GMT
Hi Tony, I haven't done and HDR processing but I was always under the impression HDR was best suited for scenes where their dynamic range was greater that what the camera can handle. I would have thought that any dslr camera could handle the dynamic range of scenes under overcast skies. Did you take a photo of the scene using the camera's metering system to try to capture the scene's dynamic range in a single exposure? If yes, it would be nice to see the comparison between the HDR and non HDR image. Hi: There are two aspects to HDR software. One is capturing a wide dynamic range which can be done by combining multiple images at different exposures and the second is tone mapping. The first step results in a generally flat and low contrast image. It's the second step, tone mapping, that adds back local contrast and results in images which can range from realistic to surrealistic depending on the settings used. In a lot of HDR software you can skip the first step and tone map just a single image but both approaches are generally called HDR. In this case the clouds were backlit by the sun. I could see some faint detail by eye but anticipated I would want to emphasise it by tone mapping and couldn't decide what exposure to use so I bracketed the shot - one as metered by the camera and one under and one over exposed. Having got three shots I used them although I'm sure I could have done much the same thing with just one. The tone mapping in Photoshop's HDR has a number of presets that range from subtle to overblown. I picked one I liked for the clouds to introduce some more contrast that was hard to see in the original. You could get the same effect I'm sure in many other ways in most photo editing software. I did have an ulterior motive in doing it this way. Our local camera club has an upcoming session on HDR and I was looking to get some examples. So this was a good opportunity to kill two birds with one shot  Tony |
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Post by Bailey on Feb 26, 2018 10:57:14 GMT
No problem Tony It's just that I have seen many images where HDR processing has been applied inappropriately, imo, resulting in images that are clearly over saturated and flat looking. I accept HDR processing, like just about anything else, can be used to create "art" but not being an "art" person (I like images that look real or very close to real) I sometimes wonder what people were trying to achieve in their HDR processing. But like all art, it's subjective. Fwiw, regarding extracting detail from clouds, I usually mask them and then do one or more from lowering the highlights, Levels Adjustment or as a very last resort use a Smart Brush. |
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Post by Sepiana on Feb 26, 2018 13:09:57 GMT
I did have an ulterior motive in doing it this way. Our local camera club has an upcoming session on HDR and I was looking to get some examples. So this was a good opportunity to kill two birds with one shot Tony Tony, you didn't kill two birds with one shot; you killed two birds with one AMAZING shot. Looking forward to seeing more of your bracketed shots + HDR. We have some themes coming up which will be perfect for it (and more examples for your camera club). Stay tuned!
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Post by Bailey on Feb 26, 2018 23:23:05 GMT
... In this case the clouds were backlit by the sun. I could see some faint detail by eye but anticipated I would want to emphasise it by tone mapping and couldn't decide what exposure to use so I bracketed the shot - one as metered by the camera and one under and one over exposed. ... Hi again Tony, Just a tip and food for thought in case you are interested or not aware. Assuming you have time to play around with exposures and setting up the shot, I would always use manual mode. Only when point and shooting (at an event for example) or time is limited would I use either aperture priority or shutter priority, depending on whether depth of field or stopping action was more important. Bracketing would be a last resort for me as I describe below. In your case I would use manual mode and given that every digital camera will try to convert everything in the image to an 18% grey, I would spot meter something around middle grey (or any other neutral colour in the absence of a middle grey) in the scene. Sun lit grass is a good substitute for middle grey. By spot metering a middle grey element in your scene, the exposure and white balance should come out correct, or very close to it, when you take the shot. I would then review the image and its histogram (the histogram is extremely useful) and fine tune the exposure settings if needed. If shooting in raw (as I always recommend to do) you can fine tune the image in your raw editor in post processing. I always aim to keep post processing to a minimum. So instead of bracketing your shots in a high dynamic range scene, if you have time another option is to spot meter the most important areas of your scene and then blend them together in post to get the the final image you are after. With bracketing, you are guesstimating to some extent how much to over and under expose the additional shots to capture the entire dynamic range of the scene. By spot metering the extreme highlights and shadows you are much more likely to get the individual shots for blending with the "middle" exposure shot correct the first time. Anyway, just some food for thought |
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Post by Sepiana on Mar 3, 2018 17:57:30 GMT
I am having no luck! Mother Nature is not cooperating in my neck of the woods -- dull days, boring skies, no formidable cloud formations or, even worse, rain nothing but rain. I will wait just a bit longer. Then, I am going Tony's way. Thanks, Tony!
Three exposure blend and HDR'd in Photoshop. |
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Post by Bailey on Mar 3, 2018 23:54:42 GMT
I am having no luck! Mother Nature is not cooperating in my neck of the woods -- dull days, boring skies, no formidable cloud formations or, even worse, rain nothing but rain. I will wait just a bit longer. Then, I am going Tony's way. Thanks, Tony!
Three exposure blend and HDR'd in Photoshop. Hi Sepiana, With only 3 exposures you might or might not get the result you want. If you don't, perhaps try multiple exposures (>3) as I suggested earlier and for the reasons I mentioned. For those not convinced, according to digital-photography-school.com/setting-up-your-digital-camera-for-hdr-shooting/ "The more exposures you can get, the better, because the potential for capturing all the light in the scene increases." . They talk about some cameras bracketing 5,7,9 shots. Mine can't do that, 3 is the maximum for bracketing. So I would do it manually, 1 shot at a time by spot metering different elements in the scene. As always, just some food for thought |
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alexr
Established Forum Member
Posts: 555
Open to constructive criticism of photos: Yes
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Post by alexr on Mar 7, 2018 19:22:07 GMT
Taken last week from a hotel balcony. Further to the discussion above, I had taken this as a bracketed 3-image, not because of the dynamic range, but because I quite like the results of Aurora's tone mapping (as Tonyw describes) and wanted to keep my options open. When it came to it, the additional noise introduced by the HDR process in the sky (the Canon EOS 7D Mk 1 is famously 'noisy') overwhelmed the final image, so I just used one image and processed as normal in Lightroom. Spent a fair bit of time fiddling with how light I wanted the foreground to be, until I settled on this. Others may disagree, happy to take any comments. farm5.staticflickr.com/4748/25770096697_c7919678de_c.jpg |
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Post by hmca on Mar 8, 2018 0:52:24 GMT
That's a beautiful image, alexr. Very unique cloud formation....love your processing! |
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Post by Bailey on Mar 8, 2018 0:52:38 GMT
... ... Spent a fair bit of time fiddling with how light I wanted the foreground to be, until I settled on this. Others may disagree, happy to take any comments. Hi Alexr. I like the scene very much. Nice foreground, background and cloud formation/colours. I am normally reluctant to comment on specifics of online images because, as I am sure you are aware, viewers' screen/monitor settings will vary (colour settings, brightness, contrast etc) and so what I see on my calibrated monitor might not be the same as what you see on yours and what other viewers see on theirs and vice-versa. A shaded are on an image might look bright enough on one screen and at the same time might be too dark or too light on other peoples' screens. That is one of the main reasons I like to make prints, then everyone is looking at the same thing and the main variable is then peoples' eye-sight. But that's a whole different ball game. Suffice to say that I am a firm believer is using the histogram to review images both in-camera and in post processing. The histogram is the best way I know to review the tonal quality of an image. My aim is always to try to get the final image to represent what I saw with my eyes when I took the photo. The only slight issue in your image that clearly stands out on my screen, which may or may not on yours and others, is slight banding (uneven colour gradient) in the sky's colour at about 40% from the left border and 20% from the top border. On a screen at low resolution it's not very noticeable but on a print, especially a large size, I suspect it would be. Anyway, please don't take this as criticism but as food for thought |
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