Winter HDR Photos

Vycor

So I decided to get out there and take some more photos. I have not done much recently but someone at work told me to head down to the water since it's all frozen up here in NY... so here are some photos from today. Please let me know which one you guys like best as a local gallery has asked me if I wanted to display a winter scene this month in the gallery for free... these are all my winter shots so I'm not sure WHICH one to use:

Bergen on Ice No. 1


Docks on Ice No. 1


Docks on Ice No. 2


Docks on Ice No. 3


Docks on Ice No. 4

Stumblebum

I am not one of those who wants to shackled by "real" only and support creativity with HDR and otherwise. In fact most of the photos in DGRIN's best of gallery are brilliant, imaginative, wonderful and creative, but most for me do not meet the criteria of "real" per say.

Having said that, I am really not sure if HDR is helping these scenes. Straight long exposures might be another option here. The scene calls for it! Cheers!

Vycor

I see your point... how about this one. This is a single NEF which I ran through Photomatix to bring out the colors/highlights, but it's not multiple images combined:

Stumblebum

Last one is awesome! Thanks for sharing!!

Vycor

Thanks. I made one more that my wife and I like. She said the same thing "it seems more real" and this one brings in the sunset (I took 3 series, first series a few hours earlier than the 2nd series, which were at sunset, but about 10 minutes apart)

MomaZunk

Hello Adam,
I really enjoy utilizing HDR myself, but I try to keep it real.
One thing that I have to watch is the haloing effect between the brightest and the darkest part of the image.
It looks like you may have some halos around the snow areas in the lower left, and the snow looks a little bright.
Burning this area down abit, blending with another layer in photoshop, or changing some settings in Photomatix may help.
I use HDR Efex Pro 2 for my processing, and I am not sure if any of the following jargon will translate.
I will usually reduce the % of method strength, or reduce the depth slider, until I get rid of the halos.
Sometimes in extreme cases, I will use layers in photoshop to gradually blend away the halos.
I do like the feel of this image.

Vycor

Yeah the halos were there which bothered me, happens with such strength, that's why I took a single RAW image and did a bit, which I like a bit better

fool4thecity

Don't like that "black cloud" thing that happens sometimes in HDR. Like #2.

kdog

Vycor wrote: »

Yeah the halos were there which bothered me, happens with such strength, that's why I took a single RAW image and did a bit, which I like a bit better

That happens with me all the time as well. I agree with others that the single-image rework is the best.