Leica M8 + HDR

[MikeMyers]

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......Just wondering why people like to fiddle with software to let a picture look as digital and unnatural as possible

 

 

Hollywood does something similar all the time, and has done so for ages. Ken Rockwell wrote a long article about it. In movies, you'll see shots taken inside a somewhat dark room, but what you see outside the door or window, looks perfectly exposed. Any of us who try this on our own will end up with proper exposure for the room, and burnt-out areas for what's outside. Or, suppose you see a beautiful sunset and want to capture what the sky looks like. Every time I try that, if I can get the sky to look on the image like it does to my eye, the other parts of the photo go black. Hollywood's "trick" is to add light to the dark areas, balancing things. That's why they have all those gizmos that have something to do with lighting. They already know stuff that most of us walking around with cameras need to figure out on our own, how to balance the lighting.

 

Now photographers have many more tricks. With Photoshop we can do the equivalent of "burn" and "dodge", and maybe even combine parts from different exposures, capturing the sky on one image, and everything else on another. Going overboard means getting very unrealistic and terrible looking results. I think it comes down to finding the right balance, so the photo still shows what the photographer saw, but it doesn't look like a fake....... or, going so far towards "fake" that people know something is strange, and that it's not "real".

 

Last year I had to photograph a scene outside a window, with the inside of the booth showing up nicely as well. Remembering Ken's article, I set the camera on manual exposure, set properly for the outdoor scene, and used an SB800 flash on my D3 to light up the room using bounce flash. Yikes! I got what I told the camera to do, but it looked just as "fake" as if I had used HDR! A perfectly exposed scene outside a window, with a perfectly exposed room taking up half the image area just plain didn't look natural. (The trick here, was to turn down the flash intensity to make the lighting look more natural.)

 

 

Photomatix is an easy way to play with this stuff, and they've got a free download for trying it out. They've also got a module that works with Lightroom, and one for Photoshop. Speaking of Photoshop, the newer versions already have an HDR tool built-in.

[j. borger]

Hi Mike,

 

I know what you mean. I dodge and burn myself as a B&W shooter and take the "unnatural" look there for granted.

It's all about balance i guess.

There are just so many images on-line that scream HDR and are way over the top.

[Big T]

I also enjoy HDR (if interested see the Canada section of my website; link below) but I prefer to make the multi-images in the computer rather than camera.

 

I open the selected image in Photoshop Camera Raw, save the first without any exposure compensation, then save numerous images at a plus exposure and negative exposure. I usually save 7, or 9 images at 1/2 stop intervals and then put those into Photomatixs and let the software do it's stuff.

 

I've never really seen any advantage in actually taking multiple exposures in the camera. I would have thought that taking multiple images would have had the risk of slight movement of the tripod, maybe wind affecting foilage, people wandering into the image, plus the burden of physically having to carry the extra equipment.

 

Maybe you can correct me if I'm missing something.

_______________________________

Best regards, Tom

Photography by Tom Lane

 

MMmmmmm have given this process a try (and still playing) but it appears from initial processing that there isn't the same dynamic range available with "processed" exposure pics and then HDRed....

 

Note this process still does still provide a reasonable HDR image.....

 

For what ever reason the multi bracketed pics seem to provide better HDR dynamic range to play with.

 

I use CP1 Pro V5.1. I took a single DNG and created 2+ variants of the original. Each variant had the exposure adjusted and then all files saved as JPGs. These JPGs were then loaded into Photomatix Pro.

 

Will experiment a bit more and then post some pics.....

[k-hawinkler]

MMmmmmm have given this process a try (and still playing) but it appears from initial processing that there isn't the same dynamic range available with "processed" exposure pics and then HDRed....

 

Note this process still does still provide a reasonable HDR image.....

 

For what ever reason the multi bracketed pics seem to provide better HDR dynamic range to play with.

 

I use CP1 Pro V5.1. I took a single DNG and created 2+ variants of the original. Each variant had the exposure adjusted and then all files saved as JPGs. These JPGs were then loaded into Photomatix Pro.

 

Will experiment a bit more and then post some pics.....

 

 

Trevor,

 

That isn't surprising, isn't it?

 

Thanks, K-H.

[wda]

A search led me to this interesting thread. My question is: "Has anyone persevered with Photoshop CS4 (or around that version) to obtain worthwhile HDR results from three or more bracketed shots?"

 

Most reporters seem to favour Photomatix because of its increased flexibility, while others see that flexibility as seductive and produce unreal results which many dislike. Can PS deliver the believable HDR refined pictures? I ask because I always like to solve a problem with currently available software, eg PS and LR.

[Guest WPalank]

A search led me to this interesting thread. My question is: "Has anyone persevered with Photoshop CS4 (or around that version) to obtain worthwhile HDR results from three or more bracketed shots?"

 

Most reporters seem to favour Photomatix because of its increased flexibility, while others see that flexibility as seductive and produce unreal results which many dislike. Can PS deliver the believable HDR refined pictures? I ask because I always like to solve a problem with currently available software, eg PS and LR.

 

I just wanted the address the fact that the HDR in CS4 is pretty much unusable. CS5 on the other hand, has improved the module considerably to something some people prefer over the current iteration of Photomatix.

 

As far as unreal results, it's all under your control. You can be as subtle or as over the top as you choose by adjusting the various sliders that come in each program.

[thighslapper]

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Folks.....

 

Try Oloneo Photoengine !!!

 

Still available free to trial in Beta.

 

It's the only one that produces natural looking HDR images straight out of the box !!!

 

I've tried all the others and they all have their problems.......

 

These are some 4/5 exposure church shots from france last week... can't recall precisely where but they took all of 2 minutes to produce solely with Oloneo.... and my recollection is that these are a true representation of the actual colours and are not exagerrated .....

 

as I've said before.... HDR is just software infill flash.....

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[proenca]

sorry... I realyl dont like HDR.

 

all, but 100% of all HDR stuff I've seen that comes out of a two pressing buttons software looks like crap.

 

the very few HDR that I see that are good , are several hours of work worth of images, adjusting images and masks...

 

I dont see whats the point of HDR : its just gross.

 

Either , be carefull with your exposure, this is an example of a photo of mine taking with my old M8 which sucks balls at high iso :

 

 

 

or simple be creative under tough light conditions, for example :

 

 

people tend to see HDR as a quick fix or quick alternative, but I do find it to work well, it REALLY needs serious work so the image doesnt turn "plasticy"... My couple of images in this reply are non HDR