HDR's.....Opinions

destes

At the suggestion of Mike Lane in this post, here is one of my HDR pictures. I'm not so much into the wild colors and super saturation, just the ability to bring out all the detail in the shadows is what intrests me the most about this technique. I know some people look down on HDR's as not a "pure" photograph, but in these days of digital, we're all tweaking and manipulating our pictures to some degree. Let me know what you all think.



This was done with three exposures, 2 f-stops apart. It was an early winter morning, hence the fog and the blue skies. The colors were really like this, the HDR process used only to bring out all the detail in the trees.



This straight shot was taken a few days later, same place, but there weren't any clouds that morning, nothing for the sun to reflect off of. The tree detail is a lot less in this picture.

Let's hear the C&C, what do you think of High Dynamic Range photography?

Mike Lane

I like well done HDR's personally. Sometimes I even like the ones that overdo the saturation depending on the subject. I'm not crazy about the image of the river that you've got there though. My first beef is that I'm not crazy about the composition. The horizon is almost right in the middle of the pic. The river does draw my eye in but I find myself just staring at the uninteresting fog at the convergence. The fact that it is HDR doesn't overcome this problem I have with the composition.

This particular shot would be better off with using the negative space of under-exposed trees and bright sky given the reflection on the water. Negative space isn't a bad thing and I find it unfortunate that HDR tends to nearly cancel out the notion of negative space.

So here are 2 shots where I could have done an HDR but I chose to emphasize the negative space instead:






I posted black and white for a reason btw. My point is that color and extreme dynamic range don't make great pictures all in themselves. The photographer should take care to decide if the scene is right for it.

Serrator

Destes,

I saw in another thread you noted something about doing a search for "HDR" discussions and found none. Here is one that we had a few weeks ago here, not sure why it doesn't show up on the search though:

http://www.dgrin.com/showthread.php?t=52631

Mike Lane

Serrator wrote:

Destes,

I saw in another thread you noted something about doing a search for "HDR" discussions and found none. Here is one that we had a few weeks ago here, not sure why it doesn't show up on the search though:

http://www.dgrin.com/showthread.php?t=52631

perhaps HDR is not one of the permitted 3 letter search words. Try this google search.

wxwax

It's a lovely scene.

I think the trees and the water look unnaturally bright.

Skippy

destes wrote:

At the suggestion of Mike Lane in this post, here is one of my HDR pictures. I'm not so much into the wild colors and super saturation, just the ability to bring out all the detail in the shadows is what intrests me the most about this technique. I know some people look down on HDR's as not a "pure" photograph, but in these days of digital, we're all tweaking and manipulating our pictures to some degree. Let me know what you all think.

This was done with three exposures, 2 f-stops apart. It was an early winter morning, hence the fog and the blue skies. The colors were really like this, the HDR process used only to bring out all the detail in the trees.

This straight shot was taken a few days later, same place, but there weren't any clouds that morning, nothing for the sun to reflect off of. The tree detail is a lot less in this picture.

Let's hear the C&C, what do you think of High Dynamic Range photography?

I think HDR is one of those things that you either like or you don't,
sorta like abstract, not everyone likes abstract, yet others think differently.
I do like the colours in the first shot, it is a very pretty scene, almost unnatural looking, but very pleasing to the eye, the colours are warm,
the mist rising from the water give a mystical feel to the image.

If your happy with HDR, then thats all that matters, enjoy it, share it, but most of all have fun doing it .... Skippy
.

Serrator

Skippy wrote:

I think HDR is one of those things that you either like or you don't,
sorta like abstract, not everyone likes abstract, yet others think differently.
I do like the colours in the first shot, it is a very pretty scene, almost unnatural looking, but very pleasing to the eye, the colours are warm,
the mist rising from the water give a mystical feel to the image.

If your happy with HDR, then thats all that matters, enjoy it, share it, but most of all have fun doing it .... Skippy
.

Well said Skippy!

I enjoy trying out new tools to see what I can achieve and HDR is just that, another tool in our arsenal for the digital war...I mean digital world.

Here is a -2 0 +2 merge I did last night:

Nimai

Serrator wrote:

He is a -2 0 +2 merge I did last night:

Love it!

Rhuarc

THe only time I use HDR is if I need to to accuratley represent what my eye can see. If I'm standing during a sunset and looking into the sun, at that time are other objects in front of me shadows, or can I see colors and details? If I can see details, then I may do a slight HDR, enought o accuratley represent the scene the way my eye remembers seeing it. That being said, I think there are times where HDR can be very nice. That first shot in this thread looks amazing! Even if the colors aren't quite natural, it has the type of mystical feel to it that the shooter may have been looking for.

Skippy

Serrator wrote:

Well said Skippy!

I enjoy trying out new tools to see what I can achieve and HDR is just that, another tool in our arsenal for the digital war...I mean digital world.

Here is a -2 0 +2 merge I did last night:

That looks great :wow wow even ..... its like you can clearly see the depth in your image from where the lady stands to where the tree is to where the river runs, and the background as well.
Very very nicely done Serrator .... Skippy
.

destes

Thanks everyone,
for the comments and suggestions. ML, you're right about the horizion. While my composition left to right is almost always on one side or the other, my horizons tend to float towards dead center. It's something I pay attention to most of the time, but it does slip ocassionaly .

Another thing I've noticed is that my monitor at work is in need of a serious calibration. I didn't realize it was so far off. This was one of the first HDRs I played with, and I did it at work during a lunch break. I had never looked at it at home, on a calibrated system. The image looks very washed out or overexposed, not my original intention. The shoreline on both sides should have been a lot darker than they show, but with enough detail to see the bright greens.

Oh well, enough excuses, time to work on my next submission. Thanks again everyone.