Haddon Hall Chapel HDR

Nearly forgot...

You must have the camera in Av mode, or use M - the aperture must not change! You should only adjust the shutter speed between exposures (otherwise you get ghosting and/or a lack of clarity).

Of course, use a tripod.

If you use the autobracket function of the K10D/K20D then you can use Av and matrix metering as the camera only takes one exposure reading at the beginning

Matt

Good Point Matt...(As usual I'd say ) Even if those 7 stops of maximum range in the RAW file should give you enough to build a noise free image. Or not? (as in, all my HDR's are build this way, and they are not noisy - although I realise that all the images that wanted to be processed and showed too much noise, have quickly reached the bin.)

Nimitz, sorry, what are you talking about? HDR means High Dynamic Range, and nowhere in the rulebook of HDR (The one that doesn't exist..) is there a point on how you achieve the different exposures.
My HDR workflow has been explained in another thread, so I don't understand what you mean by
"Well mainly because that is not a HDR image. Thats is just a tonemapped raw file. It can look very good, but will limit your results."

Good day to everybody!

Nathan

Nathan - as Matt states - one image (raw file) is not enough to use the full dynamic range.

I agree - Tonemapped pictures looks great - but you still clip the entire range. By using several pictures with different shutterspeed you don't clip the tonal range.

The method you use I use as well. It is very good and produce stunning reuslts.

So I agree - you method is very good - no question about it.

Nathan - whether you get noise is dependent on what you're taking. I have shots that just cannot be pushed from one RAW - the shadows posterise like crazy. In that case multiple exposures is the only option.

Of course, you can do it the "old" way and take two shots then manually combine them in Photoshop with blend masks.

It really just depends what you're trying to achieve! All the methods are good ones - just not valid in every situation

Matt

It's interesting what people like. I've posted a few HDR on EPZ now (user name johnriley1uk) and the favourite has been Haddon Hall Chapel by a wide margin. The more realistic Boulge Church hasn't had the same response.

Do we like our HDR to look very much HDR?

I quite like the less-photographic-more-impressionistic style espoused by people like Duroo72 - not because I like them as photographs, but because I like some impressionist art.

It's easier to achieve a strong visual impact in that style, purely because it's not realistic (I suspect this is part of the reason black and white photography can be so full of impact, but that's a different, if not unrelated topic.)

However, with the realistic ones, I think it's much more difficult. Because on the one hand, you gain the impact from the dynamic range, but on the other, you inevitably lose the impact from the contrast - your recent church being a case in point.

Whether it's possible to get the best of both worlds, I incline to doubt, but I'm not at all convinced either way.

The point about contrast is a good one and for EPZ I actually darkened down Boulge Church very considerably.

An increasing thought is that I'm using a CRT here and those with flat screens may well be looking at images with a lot more contrast. This might mean that something looking fine to me might be well OTT on another type of screeen.

I know, I should get with the programme and update my monitor, but I still like the image from a good CRT.

Personally, I still have some difficulty seeing the beauty of HDR pictures.
Not that I am a "traditionalist" pur sang, but perhaps because I've seen so many over the top examples. The good ones please me a lot. Nimitz and GaryMoffat have shown some excellent examples, the past weeks. I see some benefit in using HDR as a replacement/alternative for ND grads. And I would like to explore those possibilities more seriously in the future. I have even found a free HDR program that runs on Linux.The software looked so impressive and overwhelming the first time I opened it,
I just turned my head away and thought.........better wait for a while

Martin.

That's exactly how I used to think. Then my monitor gave trouble, and I bought a flattie.

Revelation! It's much better than the old screen, and much better than the sort of thing you get in offices or on laptops, which had coloured my views of flat screens.

G

I tend to find them a bit severe on the eyes, but also my view is based on seeing lots of monitors in offices and really not many in an imaging context.

Laptops tend not to be that great.

I'll have a proper look around soon and save myself a bit of desk space at the same time.