HDR

[Isac]

HDR image from 5 shots, (-2, -1, 0, +1, +2)
A small foot bridge at our local park/lake.

[Ozzie_Traveller]

G'day mate

Looks good - nicely detailed in all zones .... what would a 'normal' image look like??

Phil

[Isac]

Thanks Phil. I'll post the 5 shots below.

[HansE]

EH. Why?

[Isac]

G'day mate, Looks good - nicely detailed in all zones .... what would a 'normal' image look like?? Phil

Here's the 5 images -2 | -1 | 0 | +1 | +2

[Ozzie_Traveller]

Isac -

Okay - but not quite what I meant ... it would be beaut to see the 'normal' original side by side with the HDR to compare and see what / if it's worth the effort!!

Phil

[K1W1]

I think I am having the same thought process as you. Looking at the 0 shot I'm not sure there is much the HDR has achieved that editing the 0 shot would not have been able to do. It's always good to try things but in this case I don't think the HDR has added to the image.

[Grumpy John]

I think what Phil is asking for is a side by side comparison of the 0 EV image and the HDR image.
Personally I feel that the HDR image lacks a bit of "punch", maybe a boost in contrast would help.

[Isac]

OK. Thanks everyone for your input - all appreciated.
I've decided that HDR is a complete waist of time for this type of scene.and it should be used only on scenes that benefit from being able to see the full dynamic range.

Here's the 0EV next to the HDR. I added contrast to the HDR as suggested by GJ.

This is the 0EV edited to my liking.

This one is the single 0EV image created with an action I wrote. It certainly lifts the shadows and adds contrast and colour.

Conclusion:

HDR is fun and I have never checked out what it actually is and why one would use it. BUT after some pretty indepth articles and viewing some brilliant HDR images, I'm now a fan.
I know that some don't like HDR images, but to me it's just another artistic and fun thing to do with photography and editing.

This is a snippet of what I came across in trying to come to grips with what HDR actually is and why one would want to use it. After seeing some HDR images, I'm impressed.
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• real-world scenes contain light ranges that exceed a 50,000:1 dynamic range (or contrast)
• media has been limited to around a 300:1 dynamic range (including photo paper and computer monitors for digital imagery)
• How, then, do we represent light values in a real-world scene using such a limited set of light values provided by different (current and past) media types?

In general, humans can see details of scenes that span 4-5 orders of magnitude in luminance instantly and can adapt within a few minutes to changes that span 9 orders of magnitude. The sRGB gamut, created as a standard for digital graphics display media (monitors, printers, and the Internet), however, prevents colors outside this color space from being visible as it covers about half of the human-perceivable colors whilst only showing less than an order of magnitude of 2 in luminance.
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[K1W1]

I used to used HDR a lot back in the early days of digital but I find that the modern sensors have much more latitude and I hardly ever use it now unless there is a massive variation on light across the scene. Back then we would do up to 9 shot brackets but that is totally unnecessary now 3 shots always in my experience gives enough data. invariably I now take the brackets do the HDR merge in LR then don't like it and just use one of the original frames anyway. :-)

[Ozzie_Traveller]

G'day fellas

Isac- yes the side-by-side as GJ suggested was what I was asking for ... and yes, your 2 samples certainly show a difference, but not a major one.
I surmise that -as K1W1 also suggests, that most sensors have more 'latitude' than earlier times, then the excessive need for HDR might not be there much of the time

Phil

[Isac]

Thanks all. I will only be using HDR for artistic purposes from now on, as Photoshop has amazing power in reducing the gap in dynamic range between what our eys see and what the camera produces. As noted, sensor improvements have come a long way but are still a long way off in being able to capture what our eyes can see.

[wigz]

I have used HDR for really high contrast lighting but use it less and less these days as I also found, as mentioned above, that sensors have improved so much that editing a single image would giv the result I wanted. I usually found that I preferred the results from manually combining images rather than specialised HDR programs.

[Isac]

Thanks for the info Alan - appreciated. I was never a big fan of HDR images but they do have a place in our artistic world and some of the images I have seen are absolutely amazing.

[wigz]

Yes, I have seen some great HDR images but could never get them right myself. It became a bit of a fad for a while and was over-used I think.

[Isac]

I agree it was a fad for a while. I'm still going to press on play with it to see if I can get some artistic images.