Is the quality of an HDR shot hit and miss?

[cleanbluesky]

I've attempted some HDR shots of late with varying results. I've seen some excellent shots, although I've been unable to replicate their quality... my question is whether its hit and miss or whether I need to understand the settings better in order to get the qualities that I am looking for...

http://www.vanilladays.com/hdr-guide

Check some of the photos on this page for the look I am after

[eddarr]

First, welcome to the forum. The answer is 99% of the time NO. You may get lucky sometimes, all of us do.

The trick is to understand what types of scenes are ideal to get processed into an HDR. Then taking the photographs in a manner that allow for the best processing. And finally an in depth understanding of using the software to generate and HDR.

This all takes time, study and experimentation. Spend a great deal of time studying the tutorials on the Vanilla Days site and others. More examples of HDR tutorials can be found here (http://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthread.php?t=458053) under post processing.

[chauncey]

Gotta agree with Erik, not nearly as easily done as we are led to believe.

[eddarr]

And if you REALLY want to be inspired to do HDR's check out the Cambridge in Color (http://www.cambridgeincolour.com/home.htm) website. This will make you drool.