Kelley Engineering Center

[taylor_h]

Long time HDR fan, started back in 2007 with Photomatix and later transitioned over to the more realistic and subtle approach after reading much of Guillermo Luijk's (_GUI_) fantastic article on Zero Noise photography.

Here's my most recent attempt at trying to capture an ultra wide DR, manually merging the exposures in PSCS4 (based on the same process Zero Noise uses), and finally tone-mapping it through ACR.

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/2028/POTN/HDR/Kelley_Engineering_Center.jpg

Highlights were captured at 1/500s, midtones between 1/250s and 1/8s, and the shadows at 1.6s. If anyone is interested, I can post the original DNG files as well.

Comments and critiques are always appreciated :)

[Spike44]

Now this is what HDR s/b about - thank you thank you, How refreshing not to see black skies n halos.

[kirkt]

Very nice job, well executed. Post the DNG's - I'd like to see how HDR PhotoStudio2 works with this data set.

Kirk

[taylor_h]

Thanks for the replies :)

kirkt: Here's a link to the .dng files: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/2028/POTN/Kelley%20Engineering%20Center%20Exposures.zip (39.9MB)

[navydoc]

I hope you don't mind me trying an hdr image with your .DNG files. I used the new HDR pro feature in CS5. I'm no expert using hdr to begin with so I'm sure kirkt or someone else will post their own, better than mine, version.

I kept my version on the dark side so I wouldn't loose too much detail in the highlights.

[Tiger_993]

Long time HDR fan, started back in 2007 with Photomatix and later transitioned over to the more realistic and subtle approach after reading much of Guillermo Luijk's (_GUI_) fantastic article on Zero Noise photography.

Here's my most recent attempt at trying to capture an ultra wide DR, manually merging the exposures in PSCS4 (based on the same process Zero Noise uses), and finally tone-mapping it through ACR.

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/2028/POTN/HDR/Kelley_Engineering_Center.jpg

Highlights were captured at 1/500s, midtones between 1/250s and 1/8s, and the shadows at 1.6s. If anyone is interested, I can post the original DNG files as well.

Comments and critiques are always appreciated :)

Nice work on this shot; interesting architecture and very nice processing.

[_GUI_]

If that tone mapping result can be achieved using ACR, then ACR is definitively worth a try for HDR tone mapping.

I did some deeper analyse on your DNG files. First I found the exposure scheme a bit erratic:

http://img88.imageshack.us/img88/1898/his013026.gif

The EV between the differently exposed shots is not uniform (1, 1+1/3, 3+2/3, 2, 1+2/3), why did you use those values?. I found slight misalignment between the shots, I guess you touched the camera between the shots.

The dynamic range of the scene was 14EV:

http://img140.imageshack.us/img140/5544/zn004621adobergbg22his.gif

An optimum blend took most information from the most exposed shot:

http://img408.imageshack.us/img408/5544/map004541.gif

Tone mapping the blended information with TuFuse produced dark halos in some areas so I mixed the TuFuse output (that worked well to preserve the highlights) with a manually tone mapped version:

http://img248.imageshack.us/img248/8411/hdro.jpg

Regards

[taylor_h]

Nice work on this shot; interesting architecture and very nice processing.

Thanks, the engineering center is quite unique in terms of architectural design - it almost seems out of place compared to the rest of the buildings on the campus.

If that tone mapping result can be achieved using ACR, then ACR is definitively worth a try for HDR tone mapping.

I did some deeper analyse on your DNG files. First I found the exposure scheme a bit erratic:

The EV between the differently exposed shots is not uniform (1, 1+1/3, 3+2/3, 2, 1+2/3), why did you use those values?. I found slight misalignment between the shots, I guess you touched the camera between the shots.

The dynamic range of the scene was 14EV

Thanks for the feedback Guillermo. The bracketing is indeed somewhat erratic, I was trying to bracket it as fast as possible (was in manual mode) and lost count of the turns on the dial needed to increase the exposure by 1EV. This is also the reason the shots are slightly misaligned (I was resting the camera on a railing).

[kirkt]

taylor_h - thanks for sharing. I figured I'd give CS5 a shot and used 3 of the exposures to produce an HDR and converted it to a pretty neutral 16bit tonemap. I finished with thises and thats in CS5, try to see how much I could push the data around.

Here's what I got - it seemed like the sun was getting sort of low, so I went more contrast and golden tone, compared to the bright tones in your original. Cool thing about having all of this data is that you can virtually relight the scene in post.

http://kirkt.smugmug.com/Photography/Photo-of-the-Day/UntitledHDR2b/854803890_pYvA8-X3.jpg

Exploring the HDR process is much more informative when these posts are accompanied by all of the data to really sink one's teeth into. Cool place.

Kirk

Edit: Here's a brighter, more sunbathed version. Added a Magic Bullet PhotoLooks white diffusion filter to the above image.

http://kirkt.smugmug.com/Photography/Photo-of-the-Day/UntitledHDR2c/854827042_77mbc-X3.jpg

Edit2: and one more variation with a more film-like curve:

http://kirkt.smugmug.com/Photography/Photo-of-the-Day/UntitledHDR2d/854835915_KrU75-X3.jpg

I think the last image would be something close to my final vision of the golden late afternoon glow.

[taylor_h]

Great work Kirk - looks like CS5's HDR merging and tonemapping has improved quite a bit since CS4. Really like #2 from your set :).

Here's another one taken a week or two earlier:

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/2028/POTN/HDR/Kelley_Engineering_Center_II_Main_Floor.jpg

Once again, a link to the DNG files for those interested in messing around with the exposures :)
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/2028/POTN/Kelley%20Engineering%20Center%20Exposures%202.zip

[kirkt]

Hey taylor_h - I used my tonemap of your image in another thread here on POTN:

http://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthread.php?t=868860

because it was a large jpeg that I had convenient to me. The thread is about splitting an image into pieces, I hope you don;t mind that I used it. If so, please let me know and I will remove it. I referenced this thread in my post.

Kirk