River View

HDR pano with k-5 and kit lens

It looks a pretty good effort to me, for those that like the HDR look. It is however not really possible to admire or comment upon any panorama at such small sizes.

Yea it looks really good large. Its starting to grow on me. wasnt sure about the sky (see troubleshooter thread) but maybe its just me. the stitches seem to be ok

Looks great! love the metalic look on the bridge
Tonal variations in stitching show up most at small sizes, so it looks fine in that respect.
Grass looks a little HDRy, maybe kill off the saturation a little over there?

cheers

yep you are right!

Forgot about the grass.

Love that shining detail under the bridge arches The 'HDR Look' is just right for the water and building I think, but not so good on the sky. I wonder if there's a way to restore some purer white tone to the rather dirty colour on the clouds, and also some blue boosting in the clear sky?

Doesn't work for me.

Moving swiftly on so as not to be rude about HDR shots ...

Actually I do think that if the sky could be made more natural then the rest of the image is very realistic - perhaps pulling down the shadows and boosting 'low-tone contrast' would also help - but to me the mids and high tones appear very true to life.

I feel we have to be careful when assessing what is a life-like presentation of a scene - I believe we have become very conditioned to a 'photographic' reproduction of the world ... by that I mean an image that is restricted and dictated by the traditional photographic process. One example of this I feel is the common slight underexposure of landscapes caused by the camera metering process ('seeing' too much bright sky), so that a well exposed image can be perceived as too bright, when in fact it reproduces the natural intensity and brilliance of real sunlight.

The HDR process rectifies this, when used correctly, but unfortunately goes against the grain of this long standing conditioning to the 'tradional photoghraphic process' and so is often seen as unnatural ... when in fact it is not.

Cheers nigel. I don't go as high on the hdr strength as i used too.

I have to be honest on this and say that it doesn't look right to me. The composition and panorama look great - no little skill employed here, but the HDR processing does not agree with me.

The problem I have with HDR if not done very carefully is that it tends to lend a surreal and 'plastic' look to images and I think this is what has happened here. I'm sorry if this is harsh, but I always say what I think and this is just my personal view.

I have nothing against HDR and have used it (sparingly) myself, but only to achieve the most realistic result possible. It is more difficult with HDR software to achieve realism than it is to end up with a pastiche, so 'careful' is my approach to this.

Hope this is constructive rather than destructive Alistair, you know I like your work and this is an observation only on the processing technique.

Best wishes
David

No offence taken in the critique david. I think people are quick to despair when an HDR is shown - "do they realise how surreal and like a painting it looks???"

Well yes thats the point!

As mentioned earlier i have started to take the strength down significantly with my HDR and I would imagine it will come down even more until I nail the look i like.

Another point to bare in mind is I have recently spent a lot of money on things around the house and havent got them ND filters yet!

Getting them soon though David as you were helpful to point out (Hitech)

i would darken it a bit personally but i do like it and the other that you posted. if you like HDR have a look on youtube at a guy called Captain Kimo, he also goes through his workflow on a couple of the videos which is quite interesting.

cheers red

this is the final edit

What you think guys?

I don't really think thats improved it a lot - I still believe the issue is with the shadow tones, which are a bit too elevated - I'd still pull down the 'black point' and boost low tone contrast. As I said earlier, mids and highs are good in my view, but I'd like to see the clouds a 'cleaner' white.