HDR Skateboarding

here is one of my first attempts at HDR and tone mapping.

1 single RAW shot from 30D with 28-105mm lens

manual
1/500
f/5
ISO 1000
no flash

tell me what you think, C&C please

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I like the shot, and where you are going but it doesnt quite work with this one. Theres something about the gray of the sky and the bright red of the flowers thats just too much for my eye. But I like the idea, I never could get a good HDR out of 1 picture, keep trying.

It almost looks like a solarization technique that I remember doing on film back in the darkroom when I was in school.

anyone know what i could better next time?

Did you use CS2 or Photomatix? Sometimes one will yield better results than the other. I have found that Photomatix is better with the small details, and can give a dreamlike quality to the images. I think what is throwing me off about your image is the sky.. its just too neutral and lacking detail. If you are using CS2, i recommend really messing with the curves during the conversin to 8bit; if you get it right, you can remove the halos from around items in the photo. Another good tool to use is the Shadow & Highlight in CS2, mostly for the Midtone Contrast slider (HDR images can become really flat sometimes, and this will help bring out more definition). Multiple images also work better than working with one RAW file (but i see how that wont work for the shot above)

In my test with HDR if you have any area that is full white then the HDR softwhere makes it go to gray so I would suggest droping the exposure down so the sky is not blown out
if you try to shoot this again meter for the sky and work your way up in exposure to the skater. maybe one stop under from the meter reading for the sky and one stop over for the skater
or you can just add another sky


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