Oloneo Beta Test 6-Stop HDR

-3, 0, +3, Canon 7D, 24-105mm F4L
Oloneo latest beta

Like it. No ghosting, nice colours. Looks natural.

Funny, but I would have thought that with a '+3ev' in this bracket that all the detail of the wall on the left,- the shadow areas of the grass and the trunk of the central tree would be seen.

Gary - you mind posting thumbnails of the three exposures?

Kirk

kirkt wrote in post #10969410
Gary - you mind posting thumbnails of the three exposures?

Kirk

I'll give this a try...hopefully it works. This really needed more shots, but I just wanted to test a 3 stop spacing to see how it came out. I haven't tried these with PM and won't have time for awhile. Yes, realistic is what I was going for. The Oloneo version is a pretty good representation of what I saw.

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thomatis wrote in post #10969194
Funny, but I would have thought that with a '+3ev' in this bracket that all the detail of the wall on the left,- the shadow areas of the grass and the trunk of the central tree would be seen.

I would think so, too. The scene looks like it could have been shot with a single exposure, so there's no reason for the clipped shadows.

Gary, i was nearly going to say in my first post that this looked like a single exposure.
Also, three exposures ( -2ev,0ev and +2ev ) should have been adequate for this particular scene, (IMHO)
The third shot in your thumbnails doesn't look anything like a +3ev. It's close to a normal exposure.

I agree, the 3 shot set does appear to be under exposed as a whole. Still, it should have been able to pull the shadows out better based on your over exposed shot. Your shot does look natural though.

Don't know what to tell you. I measured over 9 ev range in this scene before I shot it and the spread is only 6 in my shots. The + shot is way blown. I'm not seeing any black clip to speak of. Maybe you don't like my adding back in contrast. I go for realistic, and this is very much like what I was seeing while standing there. This was a quick simple test of a 6 ev range just to see if it was practical.

I think it looks fine as far as dynamic range. My only suggestion might be to lower the saturation a small amount as the slide seems to glow a bit.

Interesting. Thanks, Gene. I actually raised it some to bring it to what was natural. I may have to do it selectively, although I was specifically paying attention to the red in the slide. I'll play with it when I get time. (DEN->LAX->SMX Tuesday!)

LAX is about an hour and a half from where I live. Looks like you're doing a quick stopover before going to Sacramento. If you get some time, be sure to check out Old Town and the American River with your camera (You are bringing it aren't you??)

From the thumbnails, it appears that the darkest image adds very little to the set - that is, there is very little detail that could be useful. The scene appears to have been mostly captured in the 0EV shot, where the lighter shot could be used to fill in shadow detail. This is not too surprising - at first this kind of scene appears to contain a huge dynamic range, with bright sunlight and shaded trees, etc. But, in reality, the level of detail you are shooting and the ambient light from the sky bouncing and filling in all over the place actually obviates the need for a huge capture range. The details that are deepest in shadow in your image are probably some leafy tree detail and that building in the back left of the image. The sky is providing so much fill light that these areas are well-exposed in the +3EV shot compared to the 0EV shot. The only real highlight detail in the image is in the clouds, and this is fairly soft detail probably fully captured in the 0EV shot. Thank you for keeping the clouds fluffy instead of making it look like armageddon was descending upon the playground.

What does the Oloneo output look like if you keep the identical tonemapping settings but use only the 0 and +3EV images for the combination?

Have you tried to take the 0EV shot and manipulate it in your RAW converter of choice? Or even in Oloneo? You could probably get pretty close to the tonemapped image at the beginning of the thread.

Kirk

kirkt wrote in post #10986162
The only real highlight detail in the image is in the clouds, and this is fairly soft detail probably fully captured in the 0EV shot. Thank you for keeping the clouds fluffy instead of making it look like armageddon was descending upon the playground.

Unfortunately, there was little detail to pull out of the clouds and I only had a few minutes to take two bracketed shots before I had to leave. I was mostly trying to keep what little detail there was from going away in the clouds and on the side of that white house on the left and right. Yes...unless it is a special project, I prefer real clouds.

kirkt wrote in post #10986162
What does the Oloneo output look like if you keep the identical tonemapping settings but use only the 0 and +3EV images for the combination?

Good question. I don't have time to play with it right now. I'm packing for a trip. If I don't forget, I'll play with that some.

kirkt wrote in post #10986162
Have you tried to take the 0EV shot and manipulate it in your RAW converter of choice? Or even in Oloneo? You could probably get pretty close to the tonemapped image at the beginning of the thread.

I didn't do that with this one, but I was at an RC event Saturday and wanted to send off a quick shot to a friend to show him what he missed. It was a great shot, but as usual, shot into the sun and mostly silhouette. I did a very quick run with two adjustments in Oloneo and sent him a pretty nice shot. I did it in the SOOC jpg (I shoot small hi-res jpgs with my raws), and sent it to him with very slight additional USM. What you can do in Oloneo with a single shot is pretty impressive. You (or I do anyway) just have to be careful not to overdo it and turn it into another tonemapped zombie shot.

Thanks for the comments Kirk. Gotta get going. I hope to be back on the computer tonight but may be tight on time.

I know this may be obvious, but I find that I can extract more DR from a single RAW once i start to understand how to operate the RAW conversion software I am attempting to use. Sometimes I revisit images I shot years ago and think, "how the hell did I even produce a useful image from this with my blunt force, ham-handed approach to RAW conversion?" once I start to "get it" I can shoot with the idea that I can apply certain aspects of the RAW converter to compensate for deliberate exposure choices.

I mean, duh, this is what Ansel Adams wrote about and artists have studied and practiced for ever, but it takes me a while to make connections some times. I have proven to myself that I am a slow learner many, many times; however, it makes for very exciting "discoveries" of the obvious. Yea for me!

Kirk