First attempt at HDR

[Pat Redmond]

Hi Guys,
This is my first attempt at a HDR image. I took the photo at about 6pm. While it was very overcast, the sky was still bright enough to be blown-out when the street was well exposed. I handheld and shot 3 frames (-3, 0, +3) at rapid. Then I merged them.

Is there a secret to getting them looking as good as the pros?

[pixelwhip]

+/- 3 is a pretty big jump in exposures, exp. when shooting handheld... what i do.

1) shoot aperture priorty. & check your shutter speed for your scene. adjust +/- 1 exposures & do some quick math..

if your aperture is 1/100 sec then your other expsoures will be will = 1/50 for -1 & 1/200 for +1 ..

also try to keep your ISO as low as possible as HDR rendering introduces alot of grain.

hope this helps.

[smylie]

A pretty good attempt for first time and the image looks natural. Nice saturated colours and good detail and no halos or ghosting - very good for handheld.

I think the secret to HDR is practice. Shoot more and try some different setting in the processing of your image.

As Pixelwhip says you have used a pretty big jump in your exposures, maybe try shooting more images, say 5 exposures, with only one stop intervals. You don't have to use all the exposures in the processing but it gives you a little more range when processing.

I look forward to your next attempt.

Cheers

[Pat Redmond]

Thanks for the tips guys! My camera (50D) only seems to have an option for bracketing 3 shots, so to do 5 I would need to manually change exposure - which would rule out handheld. Unless there is another trick...?

I will have a play and upload another photo.

[Ms Monny]

Check your camera because I am sure that you can bracket at a lower +/-
Mine can bracket at -1/3 and +1/3 or -1/2 and +1/2, which is better that a big jump in the exposure times.
Someone also said that you can take one photo and make copies with different exposures? Then you use those different copies and merge. don't know if that would work or not (I'm still working all this out too!!).

[Pat Redmond]

The camera can definitely bracket at lower than +/- 3-stops. I think it goes in steps of 1/3 of a stop. But it won't bracket 5 shots - only 3. So I could do -1/3, 0, +1/3 but not -2/3, -1/3, 0, 1/3, 2/3.
I have tried shooting raw (actually I always shoot raw...) and creating 3 differently exposed images. I'm not sure if there is a disadvantage to this? I guess it feels a bit like cheating, but it does make sense.

Cheers!

[jameslagden]

You can bracket as many shots as you like if you do it manually.

[jasnat]

Hi Pat,

Good to see you trying out new things and your thinking to compensate for the dynamic range of this scene. This scenes range was not that great (could have been controlled in post processing) due to it been overcast. Where HDR does come into play is when the range is a lot greater than the camera or RAW file can be pushed, like a 10-12 Stops. This technique can be applied in night images to days with dark storm clouds and bright sunlight, etc. As long has the light information is there. So one of the secret the pros use are scenes with dark shadows and bright highlights.

In your image. If the road was bathed in sunlight and the clouds where dark and stormy would have produced a more dramatic image.

I fell your technique is fine, all you have to do is apply it to the correct situation.

Good luck