By god i think ive got it!!

Kanikula · Nov 29, 2006

In between running around after a teething baby, i managed my first attempt at HDR. Its nothing special as i decided not to venture out in the pouring rain.. so... i did one of our dining room table :lol:

Hope i have done it right!!

djtyrrell · Nov 29, 2006

im no pro but that looks really good

(u watch i will get slatted for my opinion now) lol

Stu

Groupcaptainbonzo · Nov 29, 2006

O.K. ... so I'm thick .... What is HDR? (Wait for it....)

darich · Nov 29, 2006

I'm no expert on HDR and don't want to put anyone's attempt down but to me this looks like a standard shot of a table.

how is it different from a standard shot?

Kanikula · Nov 29, 2006

Oh Ok...

Does this look any better?.....

gizmo2071 · Nov 29, 2006

It's pretty hard to get HDR to look as good as it can when there aren't many dynamic ranges to get the exposure correct on.
It works really well on sunny day in the shade. Getting the clouds/sky to be exposed well and then getting the exposure of the shadows to look good and have all the details. Just picking each section of the picture and getting it all exposed. Then you'll have a high dynamic range.

Kanikula · Nov 29, 2006

gizmo2071 said:
It's pretty hard to get HDR to look as good as it can when there aren't many dynamic ranges to get the exposure correct on.
It works really well on sunny day in the shade. Getting the clouds/sky to be exposed well and then getting the exposure of the shadows to look good and have all the details. Just picking each section of the picture and getting it all exposed. Then you'll have a high dynamic range.

Cheers! Ill have another pop at it tomorrow :thumbup:

rmh159 · Nov 29, 2006

I think it looks pretty good. I'm not sure if you're hitting the nail 100% on the head but the idea is to learn from the practice and if you're getting how to read the different levels of light and match up the shots so they overlap correctly... it's just some fine tuning until you can really get a nice HDR shot. Like mentioned before... if you can try where there is a HUGE range of tones you'll notice a bigger impact.

xfloggingkylex · Nov 29, 2006

HDR images make the biggest impact when others can tell what the main difference in. Outdoor pictures at dusk/dawn are great examples. City lights wont be blown out and everything else wont be too dark, something that a single photo cant accomplish. For these indoor type shots were the dynamic range isn't as easily noticeable you should post the best single picture you could take, and then the HDR image to show everyone what you have improved. From what I can tell the second shot is pretty good. The first one I dont really see where the range is.

Kanikula · Nov 29, 2006

Thanks for the feedback everyone! Im finding this site very helpful and honest too.

I have to say i have learnt an awful lot from here of the past few days and im looking forward to putting it all into practice. Iv only started with photgraphy over the past 3 months or so and this is my first SLR ever!!!

Im self teaching at the mo as i have not got the time to spare for college untill my youngest is a little older, but i think im progressing alright. I still havnt a clue on alot of things. My OH bought me an infrared filter which i have alos been mucking about with today, and that, im struggling with!!! :grumpy:

Torus34 · Nov 29, 2006

'Liza Doolittle would be proud of you.

Tyson · Nov 30, 2006

Groupcaptainbonzo said:
O.K. ... so I'm thick .... What is HDR? (Wait for it....)

What is HDR?? I would like to know.

rmh159 · Nov 30, 2006

Tyson said:
What is HDR?? I would like to know.

Hahaha we probably all just took for granted that it was understood... sorry about that.

HDR stands for High Dynamic Range (I think... if I'm wrong... I'm close). The idea behind it is that you may come across scenes with strong light that create strong highlights and shadows. Cameras have a limited amount of tonal range that they can capture and realistically... you'll run into scenes that have a wider tone range than what a camera can capture. So when you see that type of scene (if you check your histogram it'll show you or you can learn to just see it before/while shooting) you can change the metering on the camera to Spot and take readings from the bright / dark places in the scene. You then slap the camera on a tripod (it's critical that you shoot the EXACT same scene) and take several pics within the exposure range of what you Spot Metered. Then using software you can merge those shots together and the software will pics parts out of each pick that are properly exposed.

It might be easiest to demonstrate by seeing a shot. The ones posted here seem to hit the nail but the tone range doesn't appear to be too extreme so the effect is subtle. Maybe try Google'ing it.

Hopefully that explains it. :wink:

Buddhabuddha · Jan 3, 2007

Thanks for the description, i read through this whole thread wondering what it was.

I took some shots yesterday and I was dissappointed with the results but I think this may be an answer to the issue.

THanks

Mad_Gnome · Jan 5, 2007

I'm curious to get my hands on the new Sony A100 DSLR and see how well its DRO mode works. It appears to be somewhat limited in its application, but from the samples I've seen, it does a fair job at HDR.

Baseline image on www.dpreview.com:
http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/SonyDSLRA100/Samples/DR/DSC02927.jpg

Image with Advanced DRO mode applied:
http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/SonyDSLRA100/Samples/DR/DSC02929.jpg