Minnesota State Capital in beatuiful HDR

[Tiger_993]

Shot earlier today. C&C Welcome.....

EDIT....I have posted some non-HDR shots of my visit in This Thread (http://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthread.php?t=643136)!

#1
http://photos.bryanflanagan.com/potn/capital-6.jpg

#2
http://photos.bryanflanagan.com/potn/capital-2.jpg

#3
http://photos.bryanflanagan.com/potn/capital-3.jpg

#4
http://photos.bryanflanagan.com/potn/capital-4.jpg

#5
http://photos.bryanflanagan.com/potn/capital-5.jpg

#6
http://photos.bryanflanagan.com/potn/capital-7.jpg

#7
http://photos.bryanflanagan.com/potn/capital-8.jpg

#8
http://photos.bryanflanagan.com/potn/capital-1.jpg

[T.D.]

Wow. Fantastic shots of a really beautiful building.

Nice job. There is a "state capitol" thread floating around. You might want to consider posting a couple in there.

Thanks for sharing these.

[Tiger_993]

Thanks T.D. It never even occurred to me to search for a "state capital" thread. I'll dig that up tomorrow.

[Gordeez]

Man, those are nice shots.
I think I need to head over to Austin and visit our St. Capital.

[jgrussell]

Beautiful, beautiful shots.

[Misiek]

Great!
I need to read some hdr tutorials... :)

[ArcticShooter]

Wow, really great images. Shows that HDR is excellent for interior images. Wish I had so nice buildings here.

[tmcman]

Beautiful and also nice that you keep a consistent look to your hdr interpretation.

[Gnhntn]

WOW.....Awesome shots.

[Avi]

amazing shots...very vivid colors and sharpness...

thanks for sharing

Avi

[cooltouch]

Fantastic shots, but I just gotta ask -- how did you manage not to get any people in them?

[gymell]

Great work! I suppose I should try to visit there sometime (don't make it over to St. Paul that often from Bloomington.) I've been wanting to do something similar over at the cathedral.

[WhiteInsight]

Stunning photos! numbers 1,3,5 are my favourite, now im no expert with HDR, but its lovely to see some nattural looking photos, rather than ones that are O.T.T. Did you use a tripod for these? You should be very happy with these, i sure would!

[rustyjaw]

These are beautifully done shots! However, I find the blue glare in the last one distracting.

[Tiger_993]

Thanks for all the comments gang. Much appreciated!

Fantastic shots, but I just gotta ask -- how did you manage not to get any people in them?

I took these on a Saturday afternoon, and even though the building was open for tours, there were only a couple dozen people moving throughout the building. A couple of the shots I had to wait for a pedestrian to clear the shot, but when most people saw me set up to shoot, they fled. :-D

Great work! I suppose I should try to visit there sometime (don't make it over to St. Paul that often from Bloomington.) I've been wanting to do something similar over at the cathedral.

I drove down from St. Michael just to shoot the capital. Come on, you can do it!

Stunning photos! numbers 1,3,5 are my favourite, now im no expert with HDR, but its lovely to see some nattural looking photos, rather than ones that are O.T.T. Did you use a tripod for these? You should be very happy with these, i sure would!

Tripod = YES!!! Could not have done it without. Yep, I'm really happy with how they turned out, which is a bonus because I had a blast doing the actual shoot.

These are beautifully done shots! However, I find the blue glare in the last one distracting.

Ahhhhh, that last one is tough. I really wanted that shot because it was one of the only ones that made for a nice landscape (due to the wide hallway and lower ceiling). I knew it was going to be a challenge so I shot it with six exposures as opposed to three like everything else. Even so, I could not get rid of those blown highlights. I need to work on it some more and I'm a rank amateur with PS so this may be my weekend project.

[rustyjaw]

Ahhhhh, that last one is tough. I really wanted that shot because it was one of the only ones that made for a nice landscape (due to the wide hallway and lower ceiling). I knew it was going to be a challenge so I shot it with six exposures as opposed to three like everything else. Even so, I could not get rid of those blown highlights. I need to work on it some more and I'm a rank amateur with PS so this may be my weekend project.

Just to clarify, the blowouts don't bother me. It's very tough to expose a shot like that, even in HDR, because the dynamic range between the interior and bright daylight can be enormous.

What bugs me is the blue halo. It's probably coming from one of the -ev exposures, which is capturing the sky-blue color coming in from the outside. But when the tonemapping picks up that exposure, it's also picking up that intense blue.

What software are you using to merge/tonemap?

[cooltouch]

Amazing all the more, especially considering you used a P&S.

I'm still new at this too, but I've read repeatedly that HDR software likes something in the order of 9 images the best -- -4 EV on one side of a correctly exposed image and +4 EV on ths other. My very first HDR attempts were 3-shot brackets, cuz I could set my XS up for this easily. The results were okay, but I had difficulties bringing out the darkest shadow detail. In your case, I would think a 9-exposure set would handle those blown-out highlights better -- although Rusty may be onto something . . .

[Tiger_993]

Just to clarify, the blowouts don't bother me. It's very tough to expose a shot like that, even in HDR, because the dynamic range between the interior and bright daylight can be enormous.

What bugs me is the blue halo. It's probably coming from one of the -ev exposures, which is capturing the sky-blue color coming in from the outside. But when the tonemapping picks up that exposure, it's also picking up that intense blue.

What software are you using to merge/tonemap?

Ok, I follow you about the blue halo. It wasn't bothering me until you mentioned it, now all I can see is blue halo. :shock: I think this is a white balance problem. I checked each of the exposures and the two most underexposed images were shot at a color temp of 5750 which made for nice, white sunlit doors, but orange interior details. The subsequent four images were shot around 4200 - the doors were a little blue, but still ok, but the interior was still very orange. So it seems that as the camera lowered the temp for tungsten (in AWB), the doors became a little blue. With the final blended image I had to crank down the temp even more to get to the correct WB for the interior, which added more blue.

I used LR/Enfuse to blend the exposures.

Amazing all the more, especially considering you used a P&S.

Oh gosh no....you didn't notice the 40D in my sig!!!

[anvilimage]

great processing!

-joe

[Philscbx]

Very Nice.
I was out when it was 20 below at 4 am to Noon trying to get shots of the Mpls city skyline, and froze to death. It's a difficult city to shoot with river in the way. A tour to different upper level parking ramps were tried, but views were limited or blocked. This view is at service road in front of U of M near the Engineering building and bridge.
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3121/3170256444_b3f4c881fc_o.jpg
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3121/3170256444_89ba37fb38_m.jpg

[24alpha]

Those shots are inspiring.

[assafphotography]

beautiful work, I love the whole set!

[Nistelrooydude]

Very nice series. I like the realistic HDR work. Well done.