HDR anyone?

[joshman]

well my sunrise mt warning climb got washed out this weekend, so we decided to go and visit the natural arch in the gold coast hinterland instead, heading out super early so that we could catch the glowworm in teh proverbial act ... of glowing...

anyway, it was a good opportunity to play with some HDR.

the pic isn't perfect, and i need to align the images a bit better, but this is definitely something that i'm pretty determined to get down to a fine art.

this is a composite of around 13 images (one for each exposure value on teh meter :D)

[erick]

Nice! Relaxing. Excuse my ignorance - HDR=?

[joshman]

High Dynamic Range.

my understanding is somehting likes are super sensitive, and have fantastic contrast ratios when compared to a camera sensor. which mean that our eyes can see more detail in shadow in a high contrast situation. basically the technique i employed (exposure bracketing) takes an even exposure, an over exposed and an under exposed) these three photos when combined correctly using software, give you correst exposure for your shadows and highlights and your main area of focus.

it's a technique i am definitely interested in becoming proficient at.

[erick]

Thanks. That is interesting. I look forward to seeing more.

[vash]

nice shot,

I took a trip up there last year and did a similar style of shot except I used a mask to remove the burnt out part, slightly different as the outside edge of the cave and water was a little lighter than the rest, might have to find the raws and try this though.

[iceman]

Lovely image Josh! Looks like a nice spot.

[DJDD]

good shot and good composition, josh.:thumbsup:

a friend has recently started playing around with the technique and he is producing some great shots.

looking forward to more.

[ballaratdragons]

That is a really nice image Josh. Wel done witht the HDR :thumbsup:

Eric, HDR is fantastic with Astophotography. I have done an M42 using HDR, and Bert uses HDR regularly in some of his images.

[okiscopey]

Good shot Josh! :thumbsup:

Visited there on way back from Gold Coast in January and did my usual snap-snap-snap handheld 'panoramic' with a standard 300D varying the exposures and framing. A lot quicker than specialised on-site techniques (tripod, pano camera, etc.) but results in a lot of Photoshop work back home! Had to use a bit of artistic licence in a few areas of the picture. The image is attached.

Hope it's not bad form to post additional images on someone else's image thread.

[joshman]

that's a nice shot, very similar to the HDR panorama my brother took of the cave. it's certainly a nice place to visit!

[johnno]

Hi Josh,

Geez,thats a nice shot.

Very well done.

Regards.
John

[DJDD]

what steps did you use for the under- and over-exposed shots?

[Ingo]

Nice shot, usually people do -2,0,+2 or -1,0,+1. Use a program for the HDR aligning.

Here's an example showing what hdr does. It's a very useful technique and makes pictures look surreal.

http://www.flickr.com/photo_zoom.gne?id=485316263&size=l

[DJDD]

thanks, Ingo. fantastic image and really highlights HDR.

I tried bracketing with 1/3 steps but think I should try larger steps.

cheers.

[dugnsuz]

Thanks Ingo - I must try this
Nice work Josh
Cheers
Doug:thumbsup:

[joshman]

heh, i went with major overkill and took 13 photos; one at each EV stop. (1/3 increments)

turned out alright though. i did a panorama at -2, 0, +2 which i have yet to process...one of these days...

[joshman]

it's quick and it's dirty, but it's a first at a panorama. and the HDR didn't turn out too well on the extreme right-hand side.

all things to learn and improve on i spose.

[vash]

The person in that last shot is only half there,

did you do the Hdr First then do the panorama?

You can also use the dodge tool to fix up that darked area's

[joshman]

yeah, that's my bro, he moved during the exposures...

for processing, i tried it both ways, my first attempt was panorama then hdr, but the hdr software couldn't align the photos and they all came out at slightly different sizes, i tried to manually align them using photoshop, but that didn;t work because of the perspective and curvature and whatnot. my second attempt (the one i've posted) was doen my applying the HDR to all the photos first, then running the results through the panorama software. it seemed to work out alright.

i'm headed back down the coast this afternoon, so i'll be taking a heap more to practise this HDR and panorama processing with.

[vash]

Photoshop comes with it's own panorama software, The one I took from Q1 is all done in Photoshop, the program does it all, you can also chose how you want them to be displayed; perspective - cylindrical - reposition etc.

Though Cs3 is better for this than cs2 as it has more functions.

[vash]

I finally found my image of natural arch, but this was a mask instead of HDR, if I can fin the raw files I'll give it a shot,