Ok ok, I only asked - keep your hair on

Edit: One reason for asking is that I believe the dynamic range of the RAWs of the Fuji S3 and S5 Pro is higher than RAWs of other cameras???

Jonathan Ryan:

Woah - Photomatix ROCKS. So I was sitting here jealous of all the cool stuff in this thread and editing a wedding where the b&g won't be back for a couple of weeks.... I set myself an hour to shoot and process an HDR image just to see if I liked Photomatix or not. So I ran up to a hill nearby (if I'd had 2 hours then I'd have gone to the beach) and blasted away about 15 frames on a couple of views. Came back and dropped them in Photomatix and I think I like it a lot. There's no way they are anythign liek the quality of the other snaps in this thread but they are enough to make me experiment on a more suitable day in a better location with more time. Anyway, I also ran the snaps through Photoshop HDR to see what it could do. The result was pretty nasty so I played around with the curves a bit. Below are 3 pics - 1 from Photomatix, one from CS3 and one a single jpeg from the camera unedited just for comparison. Some notes: 1. I edited a dust spot out of the frame on each of the pics 2. I also cloned out the Photomatix watermark so you can see properly 3. Yeah my greens are that green - that's an S5 set to "make my greens really bright" I think we can all agree 1. CS3 makes by far the worst job of it 2. I need a lot more practise at landscapes... Now back to "work".

Jonathan, the out-of-the camera shot is very like Fuji 100 or perhaps 100F.  The photomatix is a tad saturated in the green are as everyone has stated and the CS3 version is similar to what I was getting in CS2...to be kind, not very good.  A tweak or two on the Jpeg would give a pretty good result in my opinion.

Steve, do take your wife to Guernsey soon.  I had a long weekend there in June and it was marvelous.  Stay at the La Trelade in St Martins.  Great rooms, fabulous food and superb service.  Here's a shot from my trip to whet your appetite, but not HDR.

 

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KeithT:

Jonathan, the out-of-the camera shot is very like Fuji 100 or perhaps 100F.

Yep, F2 is supposed to be "a bit like" slide film. I've never seriously used Astia but I reckon it's closer to Astia than Velvia which is a shame cos I like my colours turned up to 11 Anyway everyone knows that Fuji never could do greens properly (which is ironic considering their corporate colour...). Another test has shown that shooting directly into the sun with an ultra w/a lens makes the greens go ballistic...

It doesn't come across too well when I downsample for the web but the ooc jpeg is a rather yellowy green and the photomatix version is a more verdant green with deep shadows (a bit like pushing the blacks up in ACR). My recollection is that the jpeg was pretty accurate (we've been having weird weather) but the Photomatix was more what I wanted. The clouds are way better in the HDR which is what I wanted anyway.

Bottom line - PS HDR always made me want to delete pics - I like Photomatix enough to play more. But yeah, the S5 has great dynamic range. Which is one of the reasons I bought it .

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Kidography. It's like photography. But more fun.

I like my colours turned up too.  Being used to Velvia 50 over a ten year period non-stop and sometimes using an 87b warm-up or even a polariser attached to my lens, colours were saturated just how I loved them.  I think this is the reason I'm a bit heavy handed with Photoshop at times as I try to replicate the saturation.  I do think HDR has its use, especially if there is uneven brightness levels over the picture as a whole which makes getting a good exposure nigh on impossible any other way.  My greatest fear is over use.  This happened when I bought a Carl Zeiss 21mm lens for my rangefinder - I just never hardly took it off my camera it was so damn good. I shot just about everything with it instead of changing lenses. It made me lazy.   I will keep an eye on Photomax, and if I feel it might suit a certain project I will probably get a copy.

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Heres a couple of my older HDR pieces.
I shot these the day I got my D200.

I think these show that HDR can come pretty close to what you'd really be seeing.
What do you think?





Cheers,
Matt.

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I'm really becoming fascinated with this whole HDR concept and can well anticipate it becoming a major winter project when we're blocked in for days (sometimes weeks) on end with the snow. I'm not too sure about the 'realistic' or 'as seen' aspect of it but can well imagine that this would be down to personal taste in how far one goes with it. That reasoning one can also apply to Photoshopping however so it all equals out in the end. I'm off trekking in the Dolomiten at the end of the month and shall be shooting very much with HDR in mind - at least 5 shots of everything . One question springs to mind: the light in the mountains, although clear can be very contrasty and for this reason I very often have a CP filter fitted on the lens. Now I realise of course that this cuts down the light by approx 2 stops on with full CP effect but generally use a tripod, beanbag, monopod or jam the camera between rocks etc. The result of course if beautifully rich skies and white clouds but if these images are later HDR'd would the overall effect seem ridiculous and would perhaps I be better advised to leave off the CP filter relying on bringing back the detail later with the HDR technique?  Apologies if this sounds a basic question - you can gather that this whole HDR thing is completely new to me.

Alan, I normally leave my polarizer on, and also use ND grads, just like shooting a normal landscape.
I shoot a HDR landscape as I'd shoot a normal landscape.
Then, if I feel like experimenting, I can do exposure blending with the RAW files in Photoshop, or try using different RAW's as the main one.
Personally, I feel a polarizer and ND grads work well in HDR. To me, they seem to give the photo more range and depth. The cloud detail is recorded much better in my eyes.

These 2 shots used a polarizer and .6 ND grad, then were merged to HDR.






As much as I trust Photomatix to do a good job, I dont rely on it. I'd rather shoot with a polarizer and ND grads, then if I cant pull anything from Photomatix, I can still use the RAW's for a normal shot or exposure blending, if you get where I'm comin' from.

Best thing to do if you arent sure, shoot one bracket burst with filters, and one without, then make 2 HDR files from them, and see which you prefer.

Matt.

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The all new Matt Harris Photography
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Yes thanks for that info Matt - I was leaning a bit in this direction myself to be honest. After all, if the first shot (RAW) is at the correct exposure (as read by the camera/light meter etc) then one always has the original to fall back on even if the following shots taken at +/- exposure don't turn out the expected results in Photomatix. Love your images by the way........roll on months end - Dolomiten (Dolomites) here we come. And what a great thread...thanks for starting it.

Here's one I tried out on a wood carving, there are two others in my gallery and I have quite a few to get through yet, three images, Photomatix, curves, sharpen.

What do you think?

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I took this this morning of the weather we're having. I used 1 RAW image and combined 3 exposures: sky, sea and forground.

I hope no body objects, but I'll post it on the todays shot forum as well.

Guy

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That's a fantastic shot Guy. Talk about doom laden clouds!

Glad you made it through the night safely.

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SK
The Best Photographer in the world 4th November - 5th November 2006 & 17th-18 November 2007
Oldboy’s Gallery

Thanks OldBoy . I have just tried to Merge to HDR the 3 'shots' the picture above is comiled from in CS2 but was toild that there wasn't enough dynamic range in the pictures to do this. What's that about?

Steve the wood carving has a nice lot of detail and a 3d effect to it. Was it a big improvement from the original;?

Guy

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Guy Roberts:

Thanks OldBoy . I have just tried to Merge to HDR the 3 'shots' the picture above is comiled from in CS2 but was toild that there wasn't enough dynamic range in the pictures to do this. What's that about?

To the best of my knowledge, you need a certain amount of tonal variance for a HDR blend to be able to take place. That might just be with photoshop, I'm not sure, Photomatix could probably handle it as its been designed to process RAW, TIFF and JPEG files in different ways.
I think it all boils down to how  HDR works. HDR doesnt use the colour information that normal photo processing does.
It relys on the luminescence data recorded in the photo. It compiles all of that together, using the colour data as an overlay.
So instead of altering the levels and curves of how contrasty the red is compared to the green light, it takes the overall luminescent data and shapes it around that to give the best possible results.
but.
I'm not sure.
So dont hold me to it.

Oh, and nice shot there Steve. HDR can be really good for bringing out texture as it holds the shadow detail better.

Matt.

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The all new Matt Harris Photography
DCM Gallery

Alan Ingham:

Ok ok, I only asked - keep your hair on

Edit: One reason for asking is that I believe the dynamic range of the RAWs of the Fuji S3 and S5 Pro is higher than RAWs of other cameras???

If I remember right again, the S5 has a sort of boost feature for the DR of its shots. Its something like 150% that of a normal DSLR.
Overall its a good feature, but reds have a tendancy to burn out a bit I believe.
I'm lookin' to get one as a partner to my D200 when I save up a bit, and have bought all the other gear I'm saving up for to partner my D200.

Matt.

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The all new Matt Harris Photography
DCM Gallery

Alan Ingham:

I'm really becoming fascinated with this whole HDR concept and can well anticipate it becoming a major winter project when we're blocked in for days (sometimes weeks) on end with the snow. I'm not too sure about the 'realistic' or 'as seen' aspect of it but can well imagine that this would be down to personal taste in how far one goes with it. That reasoning one can also apply to Photoshopping however so it all equals out in the end. I'm off trekking in the Dolomiten at the end of the month and shall be shooting very much with HDR in mind - at least 5 shots of everything . One question springs to mind: the light in the mountains, although clear can be very contrasty and for this reason I very often have a CP filter fitted on the lens. Now I realise of course that this cuts down the light by approx 2 stops on with full CP effect but generally use a tripod, beanbag, monopod or jam the camera between rocks etc. The result of course if beautifully rich skies and white clouds but if these images are later HDR'd would the overall effect seem ridiculous and would perhaps I be better advised to leave off the CP filter relying on bringing back the detail later with the HDR technique?  Apologies if this sounds a basic question - you can gather that this whole HDR thing is completely new to me.

Alan, I think if you were going the HDR route, it might be better to leave out the CP and use a x 4 ND filter instead.  This way you would cut down the light input without actually degrading the colour tones.  These would then be enhanced at the HDR blending stage and further at the editing stage I guess.  I'm also interested in HDR and will probably buy ithe software as my Christmas present to myself.

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