First HDR attempts - Northwestern Ontario - C&C please

[medic583]

Heh all...

I ventured out to my parents cabin in October and happened to have the camera in hand. While I was there I thought... my step-father built this in 1967 and throughout the years... I honestly don't think they have many pictures of it. So... I fired off a few shots and tried out photomatix (generated an HDR and tonemapped it) to see what I could come up with.

Too much contrast, too much period?

1. Back leftside of cabin (F/4 ISO 100) with Tokina 12-24 @ 12mm bracketed 1/400 sec, 1/1600 sec, 1/100 sec.

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3063/2952236911_c53ccbebab.jpg

2. Lake leftside view of cabin (F/22 ISO 100) with Tokina 12-24 @ 12mm bracketed 1/25 sec, 1/100 sec, 1/6 sec.

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3047/2952237677_271b29ce46.jpg

[bunyarra]

#1 is very natural - and on your first try too :) The warmth in the leaves and wood comes through nicely.

Yes, #2 is too dark. Not sure what you used to do the HDR with so can't really advise (still a rookie myself ... so many variables).

[-Douglas-]

I like the 1st first one better and they both look like a great place to relax and enjoy the scenery!

[medic583]

ahh... just added the exif info and think now I know why the second picture turned out the way it did.

F22 lets less light into the censor.. but on AV mode it tried to compensate by shooting at 1/25 second to try and get the light close to acceptable. Then... by bracketting it gave me a really dark pic at 1/100 sec and a way to bright one at 1/6 sec. Mixed together I've got some bright areas dropped down in front (from "way" over exposed) to some dark areas brightened up (from being "way" under exposed ) in the top of the frame.

Think that's what I'm seeing from my .raw files... and thinking maybe f/22 was a bit much... should stick closer to the f/4 to f/11 range?

Thanks for the comments both of you... appreciate the feedback and made me look into a couple of things already. It's definately a fun place... lots of memories, lots of fun... crystal clear ice cold water... and a sauna to make it all worth while :)

[Ron Lacey]

Think that's what I'm seeing from my .raw files... and thinking maybe f/22 was a bit much... should stick closer to the f/4 to f/11 range?
:)

Yes, unless you really need the extra DoF you want to avoid shooting stopped down that far. The rule of thumb for most lenses is they perform best with an aperture one or two stops smaller than their maximum. Nonetheless these shots are very good indeed.

Ron

[canonloader]

They came out nice, but I think more than three shots will fix the problem your talking about. Try 5, 7 or even 9 images and that dark shadow under the cabin should go away, which in my opinion, is what HDR is all about.

[medic583]

I was wondering about that for some time Canonloader... Guessing it would be easiest to do that manually and forget about the auto bracketting feature... just go one shot at a time for more than the three shots?

[Ron Lacey]

I was wondering about that for some time Canonloader... Guessing it would be easiest to do that manually and forget about the auto bracketting feature... just go one shot at a time for more than the three shots?

Here's what I do to get five one stop bracketed exposures. Set exposure comp to -1.0 and auto bracketing to -/+ one stop, take a three shot burst, now set exposure comp to +1 stop and take another three shot burst. This will give you five shots from -2 to +2 and an extra normal exposure :).

Ron

[canonloader]

That's one way. The Canon 1D series bodies will shoot 3, 5 or 7 shot brakets though, from a custom function. But with other cameras, I just use the remote cord, focus the lens, then set it to Manual focus, so it won't change. Put the camera in Manual mode, dial in shutter speed to the far right pipper as seen in the view finder, take a shot, dial it one point to the left, another shot, and so on down to the left side. That gives you a lot of shots to work with, depending on how the camera is set, and takes just a few seconds. Or, sometimes, I use the shutter speeds numbers to determine stops. Start at 4000, then down to 2000, halveing it each time till I get the number of shots I want. None of this takes very long, less time than to tell it. You have one finger on the dial and the remote in the other hand. It's quick. :)

[medic583]

K you two... ha... this is making a LOT more sense right now... even though bed is calling... you've just cleared up a LOT of issues/questions I've had about this.

I'm really liking this HDR... don't want to go overboard on the processing, but want the vibrance of the colours to come out.

Ron... I'm definately going to give that a try again. Ha... please don't laugh... but I have managed to do just what you've suggested with the bracketting... but honestly... with the extra exposures showing up in Lightroom... something so simple as deleting that extra shot thrown in there messed me up (I know... rookie eh :)). Simple enough to delete that extra exposure prior to opening up Photomatrix and doing the import... arghh... something soo simple that all of a sudden makes sense (on the import area of photomatrix I couldn't figure out which exposures were which... arghh...thought I was trying something wrong... dumb eh?).

Canonloader... working with an XTi right now but hmmm... manually focussing so it doesn't hunt between shots... makes soo much sense. I've just started playing in manual mode.... LOVE IT... and as well... will definately try thse two methods out for my next shots as well.

Thanks you two... ha :)... more learning for this rookie... soo much swimming around in my head... but you've just cleared up some really good issues for me.

[canonloader]

Well, use autofocus to get the focus, then just slide the switch on the lens to manual. That's what I do, being lazy like I am. ;)

[Ron Lacey]

(on the import area of photomatrix I couldn't figure out which exposures were which... arghh...thought I was trying something wrong... dumb eh?).

I use Photoshop Bridge but likely you can do the same in LR, select the shots in the Lightroom browser by ctl+clicking on each thumbnail, it should diplay which exposure you used for a given shot under the EXIF or image information area, and drag them onto the Photomatrix work space at once.

Ron