HDR

Heya,

I having been looking and reading about HDR photos. But I'm not sure the best way they can be done does anyone have any ideas.

Cheers josh

Tripod, exposure bracketing then combine with Photoshop, Lightroom, GIMP or a more specialised software like Photomatix.

Failing that, eat a variety of colours of play doh until you throw it all back up, gives pretty much the same results

SJRobbins wrote in post #14213467
Failing that, eat a variety of colours of play doh until you throw it all back up, gives pretty much the same results

lol.

done right it isn't that bad. some times hdr is the only way to get an image. unfortunately most people see all the pretty colors and get overwhelmed and think they are turning out a good image.

in its purest sense you are expanding the dynamic range of your image to more like what your eye can see.

for example, lets say i take a sweeping picture of a large bridge at sunrise or sunset. if i expose to get details in the shadows in the bridge, my sky is going to be blown out and im gong to lose all the great colors. if i expose to get the great colors in the sky im going to lose the details of the bridge and they will be smothered in shadow.

the solution is take many different exposures of the same scene so that you capture the whole dynamic range you want to show.

so using a stable tripod, compose your frame, and you can either manually adjust your exposure as to as high as you feel you need. the more images the better. i will generally do 7 shots, -3,-2,-1,0,+1,+2,+3. i can always choose not use them all later, but at least i have them if i need them. you can add any many as you like if you want a tighter variation. i do it manually, but most new cameras will auto bracket the exposures at increments you preset automatically by pressing the button once.

you take all these image and combine them in a photoshop or some other software that does hdr processing. from there you can adjust the exposure and what it looks like, just be careful not to make it look to cartoony or unnatural becuase it can, quickly. that's the hdr "hole" most people fall into. done well hdr can look very natural, but it takes time. another way would be to combine the different exposures manually by masking out portions of each layers, this can be time consuming but can produces better results in some cases.

Hehe, yeah, I know I was being harsh, but the best HDR in my opinion is when you don't really notice it's HDR. I've seen some black and while HDR that looked quite nice too, gives more "depth" rather than colour vomit

The amount of shots I've seen that make my eyes physically hurt.. ugh.

Just as an aside, Magic Lantern has some features that can help with HDR:

http://magiclantern.wi​kia.com/wiki/Unified/U​serGuide#hdr

Mike thanks

How do I set my carema up to take all those photos at those increments.

Thanks SJRobbins.

jtsmith90 wrote in post #14213654
How do I set my carema up to take all those photos at those increments.
Thanks SJRobbins.

Your Camera won't take HDR photos.
It's all about combining an image like so: Take 3 shots of the same with these 3 set ups:
"using manual"

1) Over-expose
2) Medium-expose
3) Under-expose

Combine them using photoshop, lightroom, etc...

I think thats the right way to do it. You'll get great results!
But everyone has different methods.
Look for "DigitalRevtv" ro "DigitalRev" on youtube. Search for "HDR tutorial" on their channel.
He does a great explaination on how to do it.

There are many ways to skin the HDR cat, but the following is a link to a very comprehensive and helpful primer if you are starting from scratch.

http://www.stuckincust​oms.com/hdr-tutorial/

Tibits wrote in post #14213699
There are many ways to skin the HDR cat, but the following is a link to a very comprehensive and helpful primer if you are starting from scratch.

http://www.stuckincust​oms.com/hdr-tutorial/

This is Great! ^^^^

jtsmith90 wrote in post #14213654
Mike thanks

How do I set my carema up to take all those photos at those increments.

Thanks SJRobbins.

the camera will only take three successive shots, if you want more you have to do it manually.

see page 121 in the manual.

https://research.micro​soft.com …ikat/ref/eos60d​-im-en.pdf

You can pick one of these up http://www.promotesyst​ems.com/products/Promo​te-Control.html It is $350 but if you're into hdr, I think it's very worth it. I messed around with my 40D and HDR pano's and this thing was awesome, it saved me so much time. It also will do time lapse, control single shot, time lapse HDR... it's a great little unit.

The technique I use is to try to get the tonemapped image out of any HDR software to be quite bland and low overall contrast (although you may still want to apply a local contrast filter) and then adjust in PS/Gimp with some overall adjustments and some local adjustments.

This helps prevent the overdone HDR look and is my best piece of HDR advice although you'll probably have to try the whole process a few times to appreciate what I mean.

http://www.hdrlabs.com​/tutorials/index.html

lots to learn, but this will get you started.

kirk