Southwell Minster - 1st HDR attempt

Went to Southwell yesterday in Nottinghamshire and took a few shots around the Minster there.

I'd fancied having a go at HDR for a little while but not having a tripod yet obviously put this on hold plus the relative cost of Photomatix.

I came across a piece of [Mac only, sorry Windows users] software called Bracketeer last week which has exposure and focus blending in mind, along with a handy auto alignment feature that makes careful hand held bracketed shots feasible. I tried it out on some old Raw files, creating 3 exposures from each, and it worked well so bought a registration for the princely sum of $29.99.

Anyway, here's the result of merging -2, 0 and +2 EV exposures, plus a little light cropping, curves and sharpening in PS afterwards.

Very nicely done. I like it a LOT.

It came out well. So this is 3 exposures made from a single RAW file?

Thanks guys!

Canonloader; no, the initial trials I did were, but this was made from 3 separate bracketed Raw files.

Here's another slightly different one:

nice I like the first one alot...

Avi

Thanks Avi.

I gave in and bought Photomatix too, here's one I made from 5 Tiffs out of a single Raw capture:

I really like how it looks in the first shot
(can't see the second one)

E

The single Raw one came out great. I went out today to get some single shots to try with. So far, I haven't liked what I got, so I figured I better work on it.

I like them

Though some people pooh pooh HDR I find it very pleasant when not over done. It certainly adds a dimension to the image that one does not normally get.

I appreciate the work you did to arrive at the finished product. Very nice images.

I have said for a while that HDR will be a mode function in the future iterations of the high end cameras. I'm surprised it didn't come before the movie mode.

Thanks guys!

Had a play with layering a 'through the viewfinder' layer [thanks to moth.to.flame on flickr for the image] then desaturating to get this:

That came out very well. Nice effect.

noticed a bit of ghosting, other than that good composure. better then anything i did when i first started, thats for sure.

Great shots guys! makes me want to burn up some hard disc space badly!