UKC

Anybody done this?

In reply to The Lemming: Yip- see pics in gallery of Morlich /Eilein- used the function on D200 to take 5 pics one stop apart and combined them with Photomatix Pro software. Just a first attempt- it's interesting stuff and I think has beaucoup potential in landscape shots. Need a grunty computer to run it all tho'

In reply to The Lemming: A D200 makes it easy- press the shutter and it takes 5 one stop apart- check if you can do that in your custom functions. Bit of a faff if the scene changes between shots- really should use a tripod I s'pose. The photomatix software is bizarre - all sorts of tone mapping required- but worth a go.

In reply to Rhoddy Stewart:

This HDR malarkey does make for some interesting photography possibilities, however I do have a few questions.

How many exposures make for a good HDR shot?

Seeing as I have PS2 would this be just as good as photomatix?

Wonder if HDR is the future of digital photography.

In reply to The Lemming: You need 3-5 different exposures. Can go up to 7 if yourgear can cope.

This is a fantastic site- well worth a look.

http://www.naturescapes.net/072006/rh0706_1.htm

I haven't tried HDR in Photoshop, but i know you can do it.

In reply to McGus: I think the one you are less sure about works the best of the three. I'v been looking at a few of the HDRs posted on flickr, and it seems to me that done well, amd subtly the results can be stunning, but if done in a heavy handed way what you get is a photo that has a flat, painted appearance or at worst one that looks like an architects illustration rather than a photo. The key seems to be knowing when is enough to restore lost highlights and shadows without losing too much variation in light and shade

In reply to Removed User: No- it's a photo- thats exactly how my(your) brain interprets the scene- Human eyes can see a lot more range than any photo can, but a HDR image is getting nearer to that. I still prefer mono, by the way.

In reply to Rhoddy Stewart:

I actually like seeing HDR images for this reason. Some how they are more vibrant and alive and give me more of a sence of actually seeing the scene just as if I was stood there looking at them through a small window.

In reply to Rhoddy Stewart:

hmm but my brain would interpret the scene in a filmic sense ie i would see the total (this image) as the memory image not in reality? the reality of my brain seeing this would be in clumps of images that make up the total.. its not a direct photo its a composite surely therefore its moved beyond the photograph?

In reply to Removed User:
by the way I'm not saying this is a bad thing by any stretch of the imagination just curious as to other peoples viewpoints. just discussion purposes.

In reply to Removed User: Agreed- it has moved beyond traditional photos- maybe its more accurate then?

In reply to The Lemming:

What's HDR? High Dynamic Range?
Most of these photos look strongly saturated and strongly polarised, like virtually every landscape ever shot on Velvia.
Is the idea basically that you use the fact that you have a digital camera in order to save playing with graduated filters?

In reply to Rhoddy Stewart:


Just seen a B&W HDR on flickr which worked very well so this techneque isn't just for full colour.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/robdg/876221517/

As for not being photography I'd disagree because a camera is still being used and the same image is used but it is just that a montage is finally created.

Are all the glamour portraits and bill board posters photography or art because the end result is light years away from the initial photoshoot.

In reply to Blue Straggler: Yes high Dynamic range, bit like dynamic tension, but applied to pics..

Dunno how it works, but it increases detail in shadows and highlights(somehow) You can combine 5-7 different exposures in the one pic. see the link above

In reply to Rhoddy Stewart:

But photography has been about the light coming in and speed to trap the light in a given moment, picture making is about making a scene from composites! ie Delacroix as an example, so when we hit HDR its more about the picture than the photograph but maybe its about an image?

maybe its all about image and not picture and photograph?

In reply to Blue Straggler:

Don't know, possibly.

But sometimes the composition may be too complex for a straight edge of a graduated filter such as inside a church and you want to get the alter and ornate stained glass.

In reply to Removed User: Agreed- an HDR image isn't a photo in the old Cartier Bresson/Tim page/McCullin sense. It's probably a more accurate "image of the scene" but it's probably not a photograph, I accept that. Ok for some situations, but mebbe a bit lacking in soul, or something.

In reply to Rhoddy Stewart:


Hmmmmm. Maybe we just haven't trained ourselves to apreciate this form of photography/art yet.

Wonder when we will be able to get HDR cameras as cheaply as those we can buy today?

In reply to Rhoddy Stewart:


Aye, it's The Avalanches' album vs. Cowboy Junkies' 'Trinity Sessions'

In reply to The Lemming:

Maybe you should try to research how people reacted to colour photography when it started to become readily available

In reply to Blue Straggler: Ahhh Cowboy Junkies... class...

In reply to Rhoddy Stewart:

They've just re-recorded it, with extra gloss, which surely misses the point!

Though it is being well received....









...by paunchy over-reverential ageing journos

In reply to The Lemming:

Its the photographic equivalent of toproping.

come on, wheres yer ethics!!???

all this pano stiching and HDRing and the like. wheres the one shot, one moment purity gone? 5 or 6 shots all taken at slightly different times and mushed together in some fancy 0s and 1s crunching system, nonesense I tell thee.You'll all go to landscape snapper hell Im warning you.With your painterly effects and your 360 degree horizon views.

Ya toproping gaylords



In answer to Original question
Yes, I have, and I do enjoy the HDR, aswell as a bit of stitching

In reply to The Lemming: photography means painting with light.
HDR is photography, probably more so than any other form in a way now I think of it, by painting the various layers of exposure onto the CCD..

hmmm, I off to think about this more.

In reply to Psychopathic_Barbie:

Absolutely agree.......sums it up nicely I think

In reply to Dr Avid:

Aesthetics ?

In reply to The Lemming:

I've not quite got my head round what HDR is yet, but some of these are rather nice:

http://www.pbase.com/michaelsv/hdr

In reply to Graham:

A few are nice - some are waaayyy over the top with saturation that looks like an explosion in a paint factory. The key to satisfying HDR for me is reproducing the scene closer to what you perceive with your eyes. Too many attempts at HDR push things too far - which can work in the right context, but is often like whacking up the colour on your TV set to the max - you wouldn't want to watch it like that for long.

In reply to The Lemming:

It looks like biscuit tin, cheap postcard stuff compared to a single crisp image but what the hell do I know?
If some of these images are meant to be the way things are REALLY seen by the eye then I need to get back on the mushies.

Davie

In reply to Graham:

I've found a worthwhile use of HDR to be for pictures out of aeroplanes. This year I flew in to a glacier in Kyrgyzstan in an old Russian helo. Took dozens of pics. Obviously, the surface of the glacier is highly illuminated whiteish, the inside of the cockpit much darker; I'm guessing at 4-6 stops difference.

My little Canon S70 will record about 5-6 stops ramge, so no need to actually use more than one frame, although I have a preset set up to bracket shots if I want to.

Then within Lightroom, Photoshop or even I think within the original software, you can bring down the glacier brightness and bring up the instrument panel/interior brightness to get them looking realistic within the 5 or so stops that you can display on a screen or print on paper.

Of course, it's not "realistic" - my eyes weren't capable of seeing detail on the glacier and on the instrument panel at the same time, but it turns a sh*t photo into one that tells the story of what was happening.

All it is is a trick for getting nature's huge range of brightness onto paper. It doesn't need to be anything controversial.

Y

In reply to The Lemming:


None of these images are HDR. There are LDR images created by tone mapping an HDR image.

It is impossible for you to see an HDR image on a normal computer display (or printed).

In reply to Glen:

No one likes a smart arse

In reply to ChrisJD: : Woteva! :P

In reply to Glen:


Now you're confusing me.

Do you mean that HDR is 32bit while a monitor is 8bit and only the RAM can truly apreciate the HDR effect?

Or do you mean something else all together?

I am greatly impressed by the images that I have seen so far which claim to be HDR and I hope to have a play this weekend.

For those that have played with HDR are three exposures the bare minimum or is it that less is indeed more before I make my images look bizare with six or seven exposures?

In reply to The Lemming:

HDR images are very useful for creating special effects and 3D models as they can be used to realistically simulate complex daylight conditions, but they're hard to make and time consuming to use.

In reply to The Lemming:

I like HDR some of the best images I have seen using this are on Bonkers Dog flicker link below.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/samcotton/1145576735/in/photostream/

In reply to The Lemming:

I've just been playing about with this, i've been wondering what bracketing was for a while on the d200. I've jsut setup my d200 as follows, shutter priority mode, bracketing on flash /aperture. When I have the camera on Single shot mode it will take a photo every time I shoot, and I have to remember to take all 3 or 5 or however many brackets i've selected. However if I put it on Ch or Cl it will take a burst with the full bracket. Is this what you're all talking about? Excuse me for being a cheapskate, but is it possible to merge the photos using the gimp, rather than photoshop? Has anybody seen a plug in for it?
p

In reply to Garbhanach: Those are quite something eh?

In reply to The Lemming: Always interesting to hear other peoples views on hdr/tonnemapping. These types of images come in for a bit of stick as not being photographs.
What is a photograph? Surely the true purist will only be happy with the image that comes from a 50mm, lens which closest reproduces the angle of view from the human eye, and the image recorded must be as exact in exposure to the original subject as is possible.
The act of recording the image to film and then print brings about changes that are an abstraction of the original subject. Use a wide angle lens and add a graduated filter and you have a few more abstractions that, depending on the final image, few photographers would have any objection too. Then of course you could also record the image in monotone, is there any greater abstraction of the original image which is as universally accepted.
Most photographic entusiasts try every trick to make their images more interesting, long lenses, wide lenses, tilt shift, filtres of every kind, low viewpoints, high viewpoints, under/over exposure doging and burning. For me hdr/tonemapping is just another tool/trick to produce images that I like. If other people like them, good!
I use Photomatix and though I'm not an expert on this software I have done a fair bit with it. There is a link to my flickr site with its tonnemapped set on my personal page. Drop me an email if you want some guidelines.

In reply to The Lemming: Becareful the purists dont here you tlking about this!!!!
Hahaha

Is there any open source / linux software to merge the images? The photos look great, they really paint a picture rather than just capture a scene.

In reply to dek: Yes great stuff but Lemmings link has more HDR if you have a look throuh it, I liked this.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/joshsommers/1558377036/in/pool-nature_hdr/

In reply to The Lemming: When HDR first started to be noticed i was quiet interested in it, and played around with it a little. But now I am well and truly sick of it, it is just like any other filter, used either in front of the camera or in the darkroom, and when its over used, which it is now, its horrible! it is now used to make a difficult shot easy, but in such a bad way that 9 times out of 10 it is so obvious.
Kept subtle, like any filter, it has very nice effects, over used, its not nice! I've seen so many fantastic photographs ruined, because of its over use. A quick search on flickr and you'll see what i mean.

In reply to The Lemming:

here is my first attempt at HDR and I would very much appreciate any comments or critisism. Sorry for such boreing subject matter but I've had a busy weekend.

Here is the first image taken as is

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2239/1677344068_f8fc5b9b09_o.jpg

And the HDR image taken with three exposures at 2 stops apart


http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2242/1676487831_332ce6741f_o.jpg

In reply to The Lemming:

The as is image is stronger in my opinion. Much more moody with the higher contrast and bringing out the small leaf details in the HDR image does nothing for it.

Might have a play with this HDR jobby soon!

I love HDR as a tool. For many years I have desperately tried to replicate what I see faithfully, usually resorting to modifying things. So many images that we see and attempt to photograph have such inherent contrast that the medium, film or digital, cannot cope without significant intervention. We're talking about being faithful to what we see. From my view HDR photography is showing the way for the future. There will be a time, very soon, when all of this will be done in the camera... play later.

In reply to The Lemming:


Well, your graphics card can't render HRD as it's not designed to, but that's not really the point.

You can't see HDR on a tv/computer display/paper print as they do not have high dynamic range.
They are all inherently low dynamic range, ie. the largest difference possible between the darkest and brightest areas of an image is much lower than in real world scenes.

To view HDR, you need something like this:
http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/2005/10/04/brightside_hdr_edr/5

100-1000 times greater luminance range than standard displays.
http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/2005/10/04/brightside_hdr_edr/3

In reply to The Lemming:

thought I'd revisit hdr afetr reading this thread. here's my attempts. the harley's from a while back and is pehaps a bit ott. the shot of mow cop while a little saturated seems to me closer to what i saw that the normal jpgs from that angle (the forground is in shadow) the jodrell bank ones i'm not so pleased with think i can do much better now i know how to use my camera properly:
http://www.flickr.com/search/?w=73307951%40N00&q=hdr&m=tags


must admit i find it odd that some people have been so negative as to say "it's not photography" I'm still not convinced i really like it all that much but it is photography

In reply to Reaver2k:

here is an example of really horrid HDR I found on flickr.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/jpn/1599071430/
A nice image saturated and flattened out to the point where it looks like a cheap and over coloured souvenir placemat. Although the comments below suggest that a lot of other people really like it .... probably the folk who buy all those watercolours of crying children with big eyes and a puppy

In reply to Psychopathic_Barbie:

I like it. Reminds me of acid.

In reply to Mr Justice Cocklecarrot: it should be dropped in acid

In reply to Psychopathic_Barbie:

Interesting image which is vibrant and pin sharp but is that really a reason not to like it?

In reply to The Lemming:

How about this then for HDR?

http://www.flickr.com/photo_zoom.gne?id=166207820&size=o

In reply to Garbhanach:

Wow, thanks!

I think HDR is a great tool for getting the most out of a scene. But there is a very fine line between realism and hyper-realism. Used relatively sparingly I think it can really bring a photo to life that is simply not possible using levels and curves. they key is not to over do it.

Cheers,
BD.

In reply to The Lemming: but to me the lack of variation in areas of light and shade and in sharpness of focus makes it flat and lifeless, and the colour is over saturated to the point of luridness. The boundaries between the areas where different exposures have been used are crude and look as if they have been cut and pasted. But I accept thats all just my opinion. Its quite interesting seeing other peoples reactions though because it underlines that we dont all have the same response to images. Cue my mum sitting there "life would be vey boring if we were all the same etc etc". but I still think its horrid.

In reply to The Lemming: I'd say that was effective. You havnt made all the bricks bright orange with every grain and crystal perfectly outlined, and its the better for it.

In reply to Psychopathic_Barbie: HDR is difficult to get right: the temptation is to overdo it. It's a skill. But used carefully, it makes a photo much more like what we actually see.

We're used to photographs and their inherent weaknesses, one of which is the problem of being able to reproduce both the dark areas and light areas equally well without making the photo "flat". The traditional solution in landscape photography is a graduated filter, which allows the photographer to use a slower shutter speed / larger aperture and pick up foreground details without washing out the sky (thus ending up with a photo which is more like what the eye sees - after all, we can still see the sky properly even when we're looking at the dark trees in the foreground). The filter technique looks very artificial, but it's traditional so it's accepted.

Well-executed, using an HDR technique is a big step forward (IMO) as it's possible to have a well-exposed (and natural) sky plus a well-exposed foregound. There are other benefits, but to me this is the key one.

My experience is that using only 2 photos is best (about two stops apart). Maybe 3 photos if everything's rock-steady, although the third doesn't seem to add much. But if there's any movement going on (leaves in the breeze, water ripples, people), you can only use 1 - this can still be quite effective as long as the lightest areas of the photo aren't overexposed. I tend to auto-bracket three shots and use the darkest photo, or the middle one if possible.

I agree that HDR cameras are a possibility in the future: perhaps we'll see "traditional" digital photography in a different light then? Sorry about the pun.

In reply to The Lemming:
When considering to take HDR what is the most important thing at the processing stage? Should you tinker with the shortest exposure first or the longest and then use 'previous conversion'to adjust all other exposures. Should I give it loads of highlight detail or work on the shadows? I suppose it depends on the image I want to create. Also i read that the scene should not contain movement - does this include rivers, watefalls and the sea? If so why?
I love the effects and clarity of images produced this way.

Thanks all

In reply to iceaxe:

Concentrate on the middle word, 'Dynamic', how many times am I shown an HDR and told that it is, and all I can say, is 'is it?'

Too little time is spent at capture stage, it pays dividends when you get in front of the screen.

Keep a balance to the range, you want border line blow outs and almost black shadows, with everything in between. If your doing large landscapes, look for great cloud patterns and keep horizons low. Avoid clear skies and lots of well exposed land.

You know when you got it right at capture stage, as it just falls into place in photoshop and looks almost natural.

Good luck.