Luna Park and Views from Milsons Point, Sydney

[gary]

Hi Andrew,

Once again, some beautiful shots of iconic Sydney locations.
Picture postcard perfect.

Best Regards

Gary

[Robert_T]

Wow Andrew, your HDR night city-scape stuff just blows me away. I'm wondering do you just pull in the exposures using Automatic merge HDR in CS3 or do you apply a more manual approach?

I had a go with some simple AEB triplets I took of Victoria's Parliament building early AM (see attached) when I was down there on business last week. In some ways the effect seems "flatter" than the individual frames and appeared noisier in the shadows. Any tips?

cheers,

Rob

[gary]

Originally Posted by Robert_T

I had a go with some simple AEB triplets I took of Victoria's Parliament building early AM (see attached) when I was down there on business last week. In some ways the effect seems "flatter" than the individual frames and appeared noisier in the shadows. Any tips?

Hi Rob,

Really nice shot.

The "flattening" is an artifact of the final tone mapping. You have all these bits
of high dynamic range which you then need to map to the (unfortunately) low
dynamic range of the output device, namely the monitor.

It's a bit like using high-end recording equipment to tape a concert in
full Dolby surround sound and then having to re-play it through a pocket AM
radio.

So the final tone mapping is a "lossy process", which also accounts for
noise in the shadows. It is simply that less dynamic range (i.e. less information,
less bits) have been devoted to rendering the shadowed areas, in this instance.
However, you can control this to some extent when performing the tone mapping.
In the end, until the day comes along that the technical limitations of present
day CCD cameras and display monitors are overcome and they can
capture and display the high dynamic range image without any loss of information,
then it is all about compromise, and in practical terms that means tweaking with
the controls on your tone mapping.

With that in mind, some scenes tend to lend themselves to the HDR/tone
mapping process better than others.

Hope this helps.

Best Regards

Gary

[RB (Andrew)]

Originally Posted by Starman73

I will get around to scaning the pics for you in the next couple of days.
Paul

Originally Posted by gary

Hi Andrew,

Once again, some beautiful shots of iconic Sydney locations.
Picture postcard perfect.

Best Regards

Gary

Thank you Gary, much appreciated.

Originally Posted by Robert_T

Wow Andrew, your HDR night city-scape stuff just blows me away. I'm wondering do you just pull in the exposures using Automatic merge HDR in CS3 or do you apply a more manual approach?

I had a go with some simple AEB triplets I took of Victoria's Parliament building early AM (see attached) when I was down there on business last week. In some ways the effect seems "flatter" than the individual frames and appeared noisier in the shadows. Any tips?

cheers,

Rob

Originally Posted by gary

Hi Rob,
The "flattening" is an artifact of the final tone mapping. You have all these bits
of high dynamic range which you then need to map to the (unfortunately) low
dynamic range of the output device, namely the monitor.

It's a bit like using high-end recording equipment to tape a concert in
full Dolby surround sound and then having to re-play it through a pocket AM
radio.
...
Gary

Rob that's a very nice shot, the colours are nicely matched.
As Gary said, when converting down from the 32 bit HDR image, we squeeze the range down to the available dynamic range of the lowest common denominator ie. the monitor.

But HDR is a very interesting beast in that the more data you have to play with, the better your final result will be, not unlike our astro processing.

I actually do all my exposures in Manual mode and dial up the exposures going through from very dark right through to overexposed, skipping every second stop or so.
In these I actually combined around 12 or 13 frames per photo and used PS3 merge to HDR function to get the 32 bit frame which I work from.

My tip would be to set a constant aperture and of course ISO, then dial in your various exposures in M mode, and don't be afraid to do at least 5 or more frames per HDR photo.
This is why HDR is not suited for all types of photography but it does yield some fantastic results when it's applied correctly.

Let me know if you need more info.

[Robert_T]

Thanks very much Andrew, I really appreciate you advice. I'll try again with 2 stop spaced images, at least 5 or 7 and see how I go.

Do you just let the HDR merge function in CS3 take care of what bits it uses in the resulting 32bit frame?

cheers,

Rob

Originally Posted by RB

Rob that's a very nice shot, the colours are nicely matched.
As Gary said, when converting down from the 32 bit HDR image, we squeeze the range down to the available dynamic range of the lowest common denominator ie. the monitor.

But HDR is a very interesting beast in that the more data you have to play with, the better your final result will be, not unlike our astro processing.

I actually do all my exposures in Manual mode and dial up the exposures going through from very dark right through to overexposed, skipping every second stop or so.
In these I actually combined around 12 or 13 frames per photo and used PS3 merge to HDR function to get the 32 bit frame which I work from.

My tip would be to set a constant aperture and of course ISO, then dial in your various exposures in M mode, and don't be afraid to do at least 5 or more frames per HDR photo.
This is why HDR is not suited for all types of photography but it does yield some fantastic results when it's applied correctly.

Let me know if you need more info.

[Starman73]

Hi Andrew,

Sorry its taken me so long, I have trouble at counting a couple. Anyway here are those pics I told you about. I think they were damn good considering it was film, and done without a tripod. Anyway, have a look let me know what you think. I know the bridge with the rings is probably one that everyone has, but I think its a good pic.

Catch up with you later
Paul

[RB (Andrew)]

Originally Posted by Robert_T

Thanks very much Andrew, I really appreciate you advice. I'll try again with 2 stop spaced images, at least 5 or 7 and see how I go.

Do you just let the HDR merge function in CS3 take care of what bits it uses in the resulting 32bit frame?

cheers,

Rob

Yes I choose all my frames, from darkest to lightest and let CS3 do it's thing.
Once it returns with the stacked frame the only thing I adjust is the
"Set White Point Preview" slider to the right so it darkens the frame if the highlights appear blown.
Then I change the Mode from 32 bit to 16 bit and this brings up a dialog box which I leave at the default settings (Exposure + Gama).

Once I'm in 16 bit mode I proceed to process the image like any other image, adjusting "Shadow/Highlights", "Curves", "Expose" etc.

It's very similar to working with stacked astro images at this point and you gain valuable insight to use on astro images too.

Originally Posted by Starman73

Hi Andrew,

Sorry its taken me so long, I have trouble at counting a couple. Anyway here are those pics I told you about. I think they were damn good considering it was film, and done without a tripod. Anyway, have a look let me know what you think. I know the bridge with the rings is probably one that everyone has, but I think its a good pic.

Catch up with you later
Paul

Very nice Paul, the colours are rich.
I still love film, it has something to it which I can't explain but I really like.

If you have Photoshop or something similar maybe you can apply a little bit of sharpening and slight colour saturation boost because inevitably a little is lost in the scanning process.

You are lucky you got these photos with the Olympic rings, I wasn't into photography in a big way back then and so have nothing of this type of shot to do with the Olympics.
I never get tired of viewing shots like this.

Well done.

[Starman73]

Hi Andrew,

Thanks for that, I will give those things a go. I love the ability to see the photo you have taken instantly that comes with digital photos, but I love the look of film.

When I got that camera, I was so surprised with the colour I got out of it. I had had experience only with instant cameras before that and the photos were always the best from my Canon 500n. I really dont know if it is the camera or the film I used that produces great colour. I generally only used Fuji Film with great results like the pics I showed you, then on holidays once I ran out of that film and got Kodak film, I noticed that the colour was still very good, but I dont think it was quite as vivid. Now with the digital the photos are great too. Took a road trip to Perth from Sydney via the coast last year, had plenty of photo opportunities, wonderful views to capture and the digital SLR was amazing. Only problem was there was a little speck of dust on the CCD chip so a lot of my pics have a couple of small specks on them, that doesn't happen so much with film.

Anyway, moving with the times, digital is the way to go. I cant wait to get out and take some photos through my scope once I get it all set up.

I am glad I got to show you the pic with the rings if you didnt get to get one. I thought it would be so cliche, the kind of pic everyone got, but I am so proud of it considering it was a night shot, slightly long exposure and I took it without a tripod or any kind of support.

I am glad you liked it, I hope others liked them too.
Catch you later
Paul