and a quick test:

normal single shot, changed to Landscape picture style, saturation +1, contrast -2 in DPP:


HDR Art Vivid


HDR Art Standard



all hand held.

Not perfect but not horrible either. The HDR treatment does not seem imposing, overly obvious or distracting.

The top-most image is very pleasing.

Thanks for the test.

I'm definitely loving the Art Vivid option, in this example and in my own testing. I just wish there wasn't a ~5 second delay between shots, that really is a killer for shooting this in any kind of action situation.

Admittedly, the Canon HDR option beats the snot out of Nikon's 2-shot, 3-stop limited functionality. For a company that has had such advanced bracketing options for years, I'm disappointed in Nikon's HDR feature and very impressed by Canon's...



=Matt=

Originally Posted by Matthew Saville I'm definitely loving the Art Vivid option, in this example and in my own testing. I just wish there wasn't a ~5 second delay between shots, that really is a killer for shooting this in any kind of action situation.

You do realize this is literally Artificial Intelligence at work, right? The camera has to decide what should look like what, and locate the edges and boundaries of all objects in the scene, and then align the 3 shots. I'm surprised it doesn't take 10 seconds and I'm amazed there aren't crazy halos around everything, especially the tree branches.

I've never been a fan of HDR, so I never got good at making them in CS5, but even just "pushing the button" and accepting all defaults takes longer than the camera does, and usually looks like crap. So the fact that these are actually pleasing really impresses me.

Originally Posted by jmphotocraft You do realize this is literally Artificial Intelligence at work, right? The camera has to decide what should look like what, and locate the edges and boundaries of all objects in the scene, and then align the 3 shots. I'm surprised it doesn't take 10 seconds and I'm amazed there aren't crazy halos around everything, especially the tree branches. I've never been a fan of HDR, so I never got good at making them in CS5, but even just "pushing the button" and accepting all defaults takes longer than the camera does, and usually looks like crap. So the fact that these are actually pleasing really impresses me.

I am indeed very impressed by the outcome. I just wish that they could do the JPG creation in the background while I fill up the buffer with another 3-6 frames. The buffer can hold 9 mRAW frames before slowing, right? If I keep the HDR's to 3 shots.....Oh well...


=Matt=

The camera is doing image processing which tends to suck up all the bandwidth memory can provide. So I doubt there is any memory bandwidth left to even just write additional raw images. The HDR processing ends up doing lot's of reads and writes to memory and there just aren't writes left to be used to store a new image.

This is just a guess though, but I've done image processing stuff in the past and memory bandwidth usually turns out to be the limiting factor.

Originally Posted by Matthew Saville I am indeed very impressed by the outcome. I just wish that they could do the JPG creation in the background while I fill up the buffer with another 3-6 frames. The buffer can hold 9 mRAW frames before slowing, right? If I keep the HDR's to 3 shots.....Oh well... =Matt=

single shot:


HDR Art-Vivid:


I was a staunch member of the HDR Hate Club, but I'm finding this feature very useful. It is officially in my bag of tricks.

Originally Posted by jmphotocraft single shot: I was a staunch member of the HDR Hate Club, but I'm finding this feature very useful. It is officially in my bag of tricks.

I think its because people over do it so much. This camera just gets the tones in, does it right, and then leaves the creative up to the user. I didn't like HDR much before but this just makes things so easy, quick, and smooth, and is a simple means for technical correction that works really really well :)

Hmm, to be fair, here is the single NON-HDR shot processed differently: Landscape picture style, Exposure -0.5, Contrast -4, Saturation +2:



The original was the Standard picture style, everything at the defaults. Still, the in-cam hdr has merit.

I'm liking the expanded dynamic range with appearing overly done. Bravo Canon!

I wish they add a power-line eraser to all the new camera's. How I hate them and how much time I waste trying to keep them out of the frame

Originally Posted by DeVerm I wish they add a power-line eraser to all the new camera's. How I hate them and how much time I waste trying to keep them out of the frame

If they did that, then a lot of people wouldn't have any electrical power.














...but, in the movie Super 8, the lines did disappear, at 0:44:00 in. So, maybe.

Here's 3 HDRs I took for my first day out with the MKIII. Personally, I find it a game changer with how I think when I take photos. All hand held. On average, they're not quite as sharp at %100 as a normal photo since there is a bit of difference between each shot, but still really good. Can still make a 20x30 out of 'em maybe without micro detail. I'll be looking into a monopod and then tack sharp hand held will be pretty easy. Or I guess that just makes it hand assisted with one? lol idk.

Bruce - I'm not seeing the "HDR-ness" of those images, and that's probably a good thing! I imagine a single shot of these scenes would have looked much different?

I'm not much of an HDR fan given the gobbs of overcooked images floating about and I'm definitely not needing another camera, that said though this is the one feature that makes me want to hit the buy button.

Originally Posted by 20DNoob I'm not much of an HDR fan given the gobbs of overcooked images floating about and I'm definitely not needing another camera, that said though this is the one feature that makes me want to hit the buy button.

The AF doesn't suck either.

Originally Posted by jmphotocraft Bruce - I'm not seeing the "HDR-ness" of those images, and that's probably a good thing! I imagine a single shot of these scenes would have looked much different?

Yes, quite different Although some more than others. Think of it as a technical correction rather than an artistic choice. For me, HDR mode is a very quick means to correct a technical problem of a ~14 stop limit dynamic range, and expanding it to 20 stops instead. There's a fair share of scenes that benefit from a 6 stop dynamic range boost. You're expanding the highlight and shadow range by 8 times more light on each side of the histrogram, which I'll take any day for a landscape!


As for the photos I posted, SOOC, mucked shadows and blown highlights (other than the sky) would be everywhere. It was pretty dim in that forest other than the light streaks hitting the leaves. Also, the sunbeam in that one shot would not be as discernable or it would be drowned and blown out by flare from overexposure where the sun is actually showing. So, it captures a much wider ranger of highlights you can't recover in ACR later, and de-noises shadows that would otherwise look pretty crappy. It can make up for Canons noisy shadow performance with their sensors, lol.

Originally Posted by jmphotocraft The AF doesn't suck either.

Indeed by far THIS is the one feature that I find as a "trigger puller" for purchasing the mk3.

I am indeed very impressed by the HDR mode though!

=Matt=

Originally Posted by David_S85 If they did that, then a lot of people wouldn't have any electrical power.

Or bury them, as per UK ... for local purposes, anyway - still got national grid pylons /lines etc.

pp

Another quick test:

Straight out of the camera:


In-camera HDR, Art-Vivid, auto bracketing:


Single shot (same as the first), converted in DPP with Landscape picture style, contrast -2, shadows +2, saturation +1:


I'd still say the in-cam HDR shot is "better", and it's worth taking one in any contrasty situation, but it's nice to know you can get most of the way there with a single shot.