HDR

I 100% agree. I personally do not have a need for HDR anymore since having a K-5. There's enough dynamic range to boost shadows/tame highlights in a single raw image. "HDR acid trip - that's a great way to express how I feel about it too. As others have said, my approach is to have a result looking real, not artificial. It's rare I see a HDR image and think - "wow" I love that. 9 times out of ten I'm almost repulsed by them.

That's fair enough MrS, although much of that redness is actually due to the strongly mixed lighting. All those interior lights are very dull and very red.

Nonetheless, it could be toned down and you could get the result you indicate you want.

I confess to having real problems with shots like this. If the intention is to just produce a striking image I've no argument, but if it is (apparently) attempting to represent a scene I do. I don't know what part of the world you come from, but where I live we don't have strange luminous trees or reflections that are brighter than the sky they are reflecting. Whether it's HDR or not use of global tone mapping seems to make my skin crawl.

Many thanks for all your comments.
Rich, I've just been to the SNS website and I think it deserves further investigation. The photos shown in the website's gallery are just what I am looking for.
Smeggy, I tend to agree with you; something between John's two photos would be just ideal. I was photographing in a church a couple of days ago and got a very similar result which made me decide to look a little deeper into the subject.
Once again, many thanks for your assistance and, hopefully, others can benefit from it also.

It's a fine shot and my eyes don't object to the red at all. The processing has really brought out that magnificent carving which was pretty invisible before, maybe even a touch too much as it dominates the attention. Apart from the carvings the other fine features of the image for me are that magnificent window, the candles and the proportions of the arches. I think the tone mapping has unfortunately removed the window's prominance, the increased texture in the stone adds interest but does takes away the shape a bit - so a draw on that for me. I suspect my approach, rather than tone mapping, might be to just try treating the shadows to a bit of fill light and maybe even some local contrast (restricted to the shadows) if the carvings need more details. For the window I think I would try to emphasise it's light by pushing its brighness and saturation as far as I could.

I thin'k I'd better pay my dues and sign up to the tone mapping haters soceity pronto To be fair I'm maybe a hypocrite on this as I frequently throw some default setting tone mapping in but almost invariably then dial that down to something like 20% opacity so my eyes don't hurt.

I realy like this HDR photo I have played around with HDR with little sucsess but if I had produced an image like this I would be very happy with the result. I came across this video on the net hope you find it useful.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v3CPavb2NWs
ian

Just as an aside, the HDR version as a print won first place for me at the Wigan 10 Gala Day a couple of years back. I've been pleased with the success the image has had.

I'm not surprised John - its a spectacular image. Even to a HDR hater like me it might have found favour - especially if I hadn't seen the original and didn't know what it had lost as well as what it had gained.

If you fancy giving me one a suitable raw from the series that went into the composite I'd be happy to try and show what I would try to get out of it - although I can say in advance it won't be anywhere near as spectacular as your final image and almost certainly wouldn't get the judges attention so much.

for me if you can tell it's HDR it's been overdone.

I too find 99.5% I see repulses me

With John's shots - somewhere between the two would be to my tastes too.

The strange luminous trees are Silver Birches, so they may well look brighter than a blue sky. Personally I think the image is quite decent.

The point of HDR is to bring out detail in the highlights and shadows, not necessarily to make it exactly as it is which can give rise to pictures that are nothing but soot and whitewash! With digital one cannot compensate by using a softer grade paper or fiddling with exposure and development times to compensate.

John

I don't understand the 'repulsion' shown towards HDR images. Sure, they may not be to people's tastes, but 'repulsed'? A tad OTT if you ask me.

I could understand it if your sole goal in photography was to make a 100% accurate record of how something appeared, but in reality that's not the case, what the majority of us are after is a striking/interesting image.

Like it or loath it, the fact HDR exists brings variety, which is definitely a good thing.

FWIW, I think Redbusa's shot is a fairly restrained effort, one which helps bring out detail in a shot which in it's original state probably looked a little flat.

Towards the other end of the scale is John's effort, more obvious HDR on show, but one which gives the picture a certain aura, which for me fits well with the subject matter.

I'm with you on this ,BigJR there are a few things in life to be repulsed by. Racism , sexism ,homophobia, to name a few, but HDR...a tad OTT as you say .
I like it and if I knew how to do it I would have a go meself, I like the way the woodgrain has been rendered in Johns photo....jeff...

It looks far too acid trip for me too. Anyway, each to their own. HDR seems like Marmite to me.

It is worth stating, (particularly for the OP pauljay), that Photmatrix Pro does give you more options, ie sliders to tone down the HDR effect. The output is also very large TIFF files, which gives you even more scope for manipulation in Photoshop, (often I find the colours, particualry blues, need returning to reality).

That being said, it has already been said, the K5's dynamic range using RAW has made for more subtle single image presentations. Though I do still bracket quite a bit in the field out of the habit for 'playing safe'.

The silver birches are fine, they seem quite realistic shades. Actually, being really excessively picky, they would be a completely natural shade if the sky was a bit brighter but its so subtle I wouldn't have noticed it until we start focusing on them and really looking hard. So they get a pass from me.

It's the glowing tree stump roots in the foreground that don't.