HDR and Photomatix with a Canon 40D

gdaddy

HDR using Photomatix brings added creativity. BUT, I can not get my photos too look like some I have seen. I do not want to go way un-natural, but can you all provide some input on settings, how many different exposures, how many stops apart, and so forth. Is there another software anyone has found that they think is better. IF you provide photos, please provide some info on the setting used for that photo if you can.
Thanks,
gdaddy

agunther

gdaddy wrote:

HDR using Photomatix brings added creativity. BUT, I can not get my photos too look like some I have seen. I do not want to go way un-natural, but can you all provide some input on settings, how many different exposures, how many stops apart, and so forth. Is there another software anyone has found that they think is better. IF you provide photos, please provide some info on the setting used for that photo if you can.
Thanks,
gdaddy

Photmatix is amongst the best. Recently I have seen a lot of very ugly HDR shots. Many people crank the sliders way up, but the shots end up very unnatural.
For a more natural look in Photomatix, I recommend upping the White and Black point sliders a bit. It will have some natural clipping, but that looks fine.

It would be helpful if you could post an example of your result and a screenshot of your settings.

I prefer a natural look on my HDR shots:

(from my Grand Central Park Gallery)
Even here I should tweak it some more, as I feel that the walls look too flat (too HDRish).

gdaddy

agunther wrote:

Photmatix is amongst the best. Recently I have seen a lot of very ugly HDR shots. Many people crank the sliders way up, but the shots end up very unnatural.
For a more natural look in Photomatix, I recommend upping the White and Black point sliders a bit. It will have some natural clipping, but that looks fine.

It would be helpful if you could post an example of your result and a screenshot of your settings.

I prefer a natural look on my HDR shots:

(from my Grand Central Park Gallery)
Even here I should tweak it some more, as I feel that the walls look too flat (too HDRish).

agunther, I looked at your gallery where you also have another comment on this photo - that the wall would have been too dark and the outside at the end would have been way over exposed. So, it seems that HDR saved this photo so to speak. I like the colors. I have not saved any of the HDR photos I have worked on so far. I just have not got the hang of it or elso it looks flat or else it looks too un-natural. When I finish I end up putting the photo in photoshop and getting the look I wanted, except for some better adjustment of the shadows. What difference in stops did you use/do you use? The tutorial of Photomatix suggested 2 stops for at least 3 to 5 exposures, but I liked using 1 stop, and the canon will only alow bracketisng of 3 at +- 2 stops at the most. gdaddy

kdog

I started with Dynamic Photo HDR, but they ripped me off (see my sig), so I switched to Photomatix. As near as I can tell, Photomatix does NOT do those pseudo-realistic shots that you've seen from other HDR products such as Dynamic PhotoHDR. Photomatix seems to specialize in realism.

As you've probably seen, there are two fundamental modes in Photomatix: HDR/ToneMapping mode, and exposure blending mode. The HDR will allow you to add some saturation to the picture which may or not look good. Blend mode does a very simple exposure merge and keeps things the most natural. I've been trying my shots both ways to see which I like best. Turns out that it depends on the shot. Exposure blend definitely gives you the most natural results, which of course might not be what you want. BTW, I use a Canon 40D as well.

Here are two shots, one in HDR mode, and one in exposure mode.

HDR/Tone Mapping

The sunrise was pretty spectacular. While, I think this mode may have enhanced the saturation a bit, I do feel it's representative of how it actually look. I tried exposure blend on it, and couldn't do a thing with it.

Exposure Blend

And conversely, this shot looked terrible under HDR/Tonemapping. It added too much light to the pavers and made them grainy. I found out some of that is due to Photomatix's RAW image processing. It's nice that it does it, but they even tell you that for best results you shouldn't use it.

As a digression, HDRs don't benefit from shooting RAW. You're better off shooting Jpeg. How's that for a controversial statement.

What the exposure blend mode did do was to balance the light from the city against the pool and tree lights. In other words blended the exposures which is exactly what I wanted it to do.

Cheers,
-joel

devbobo

Photomatix can produce unrealistic images, from my experience you need to pay attention to over use of the Strength, Luminosity and Gamma settings.

devbobo

gdaddy wrote:

What difference in stops did you use/do you use? The tutorial of Photomatix suggested 2 stops for at least 3 to 5 exposures, but I liked using 1 stop, and the canon will only alow bracketisng of 3 at +- 2 stops at the most. gdaddy

Personally, I don't use the automatic bracketing on my 20D. There are two other methods you can use. Shoot in aperture priority and adjust the EV between exposures. Shoot in manual and adjust the shutter speed between exposures.

agunther

devbobo wrote:

Personally, I don't use the automatic bracketing on my 20D. There are two other methods you can use. Shoot in aperture priority and adjust the EV between exposures. Shoot in manual and adjust the shutter speed between exposures.

Good tip. You do not want to vary your depth of field between the shots. I almost always use Aperture Priority.

kdog

devbobo wrote:

Photomatix can produce unrealistic images, from my experience you need to pay attention to over use of the Strength, Luminosity and Gamma settings.

I've used both Dynamic PhotoHDR as well as Photomatrix. In my experience, PhotoHDR goes MUCH further in its ability to create special effects than does Photomatix.