another HDR post

took these today, a couple of village Churches, natuaral light only so used bracketing to get as much as i could out of it. this village was formed from 2 parishes in 1935

St Andrews, Eastleach (was Eastleach Turville)










St Michael and St Martins,Eastleach (was Eastleach Martin) this is in the care of the Churches Conservation Trust







processed with Photomatix and final tweaks in photoshop

A very nice set indeed. You've done an absolutely superb job rendering the stained glass colours in the third shot.

thanks Rob, actually i tell a lie i took them yesterday, been a long couple of days. i think the subject lends itself to the use of bracket(HDR) shooting, plan on doing a "50 Village Church" project using only whatever natural light they have. i find they are very calming to work in, cool and quiet, plus some of the villages could have other photographic gems, you never know.

Nice shots : - I wouldn't call them HDR at all, which to me conjures up the acid trip cartoon stuff that's rather sickly.

Even though you've reduced the dynamic range ala HDR, these are very natural and don't desreve the HDR label

No, no , no. This is what HDR was invented for and how it should be. I'd never say a word against it if used like this - acid trips are acid trips that just find the HDR tool an easy way to artistically distort the original.

thanks smeggy, the object of the exercise was to try and end up with a very natural appearance. blended together in Photomatix using the "natural" or "enhanced" preset as the starting point.

Great work, as sharp as a scalpel

The process gets a bad press, and has become associated with that over-detailed, over-saturated gravelly texture and highly raised shadows that go beyond the natural. As has been said a few times lately, it is really just another 'tool' to compensate for the DR limitations of the sensor. It works well here because the DR extremes are natural and close to what our eyes would detect themselves when scanning around the scene.

Photomatix Pro has a number of presets including a few which are 'natural' & 'photographic', they are good starting points for using the software for this aim.

Couldn't agree more. Do not appear as HDR at all, which i suppose is the greatest compliment you can pay a HDR image. Beautiful set of images.

thanks to all for the comments, i must admit i was pleased with the outcome of the processing and will definitely use it again, may experiment using some of the mono presets as a start to see what happens.