What do you look for when shooting HDR?

Photog4Christ

I'll be going up to Michigan and on the way up I'm going to try and snag a few lighthouse shots. When shooting HDR, what conditions do you look for?

What specifically makes you say "this would be perfect for HDR".

Thank you

OhEddie

Neal,

During the 4th of July, my two boys and I visited Manistee Michigan. I didn't concentrate on taking artful photos. Just snapshots of the kids having fun.

I did take one HDR shot when we made a trip up to Sleeping Bear Dunes.



I used HDR in this case because I don't have a graduated ND filter, and I wanted to feature the sky in the background.

Here is another shot from the same location, and as you can see, the sky is just not the same.



So when you get to those light houses, use HDR when you have a high tonal contrast between the bright and dark areas. In other words, High Dynamic Range.

I use it mainly for shots that have clouds that I want to capture.

Here are some more HDR shots from last week, back in Georgia.

http://edh.smugmug.com/gallery/8985058_NDtWY/1/597263582_MZSBi

These are all HDR except the lock and the bridge.

Here is one more, non HDR, of Manistees North Lighthouse...



I'll be looking for your shots when you get back.

Have a great trip.

Photog4Christ

Eddie:

Thank you very much for your reply.

I haven't been to Michigan in about three years(??). I'm looking forward to the trip. I'll be sure to post when I get back.

-Neal

theNOIZ

Photog4Christ wrote:

I'll be going up to Michigan and on the way up I'm going to try and snag a few lighthouse shots. When shooting HDR, what conditions do you look for?

What specifically makes you say "this would be perfect for HDR".

Thank you

One word: clouds.

They always have an amazing impact on HDR. Good luck with your shoot!

Photog4Christ

theNOIZ wrote:

One word: clouds.

They always have an amazing impact on HDR. Good luck with your shoot!

Thank you Shaun. I'm hoping for a cloudy "HDR" kind of day!

sixdaemonbag

I look for things that are high contrast or show a lot of subtle lighting. You can't capture some of that without multiple exposures to emphasize each portion of the image you want to see in the final composition (or with your own eyes since cameras can't keep up with the processing power of your eyes and brain.) I'm still learning, so I try and HDR things that don't move so minimize the motion blur. I've posted this before on one of the other forum areas but here's a couple of HDR's I did in the past few months.

This first one was an attempt to really capture what my eyes were seeing as the sun was setting on the car as far as the play of light and reflections and shadow. It's HDR, but a very realistic image after the processing is done.



This next one was more surreal. I was looking more at the textures in the image and playing with the tones to bring out some of those textures, as well as using the existing lighting to help define the lines on the car and make it look less flat. In doing so this drifts away from realism but still came out looking pretty cool. I usually like to keep my HDR images looking more real and just using the effect to accentuate things and make it visually pop.

Nicolas

I just began playing around with HDR two weeks ago and I am still trying to figure out what kind of conditions are needed to get a good HDR shot. I went out one day and took about 15 different sets of images (each set bracketed on a tripod). Of the 15 sets, about 3 came out pretty well, while the rest just didn't seem to really hit the mark. I am not sure why, in the exact same conditions and with a very similar approach (I obviously adjusted the shutter speed based on lighting conditions and tried to cover as much range as possible) I had such different results.

My advice is to try and shoot as much as possible, move around your camera (use a tripod) and give yourself as much room to work with as possible.

Here is one of my more successful shots- C&C welcome.