2 HDR attemps C&C wanted

rock3ralex · Sep 13, 2010

How are these for my first few HDR attemps?

1.

2. This shot was at midnight at my school. 30S exposure.

Irishwake · Sep 13, 2010

:meh:

I'm just not seeing what's HDR about these..

1) The first one looks like maybe the saturation was bumped a bit, or maybe you adjusted the curves? It's hard to tell through an airplane window. Definitely not seeing the HDR here.

2) Again looks like bumped saturation with a long exposure. Also it may be intentional, but the tilted horizon is killing me.

rock3ralex · Sep 13, 2010

Irishwake said:
:meh:

I'm just not seeing what's HDR about these..

1) The first one looks like maybe the saturation was bumped a bit, or maybe you adjusted the curves? It's hard to tell through an airplane window. Definitely not seeing the HDR here.

2) Again looks like bumped saturation with a long exposure. Also it may be intentional, but the tilted horizon is killing me.

Ya these are more photoshop HDRs and not true ones. I have to get out and try the real think still.

What do you mean by the tilted horizon? I'd like to know what you mean so I don't make that mistake again.

Irishwake · Sep 13, 2010

If you follow the grass/horizon in the second one, from left to right it's tilted "up". At first glance it looks as though the buildings are leaning to the left suggesting the camera was not level on the tripod and was tilted to the right a bit.

I assume for the HDR aspect you just ran a single photo through the HDR filter in Photoshop? If so yeah, this is essentially what it will create. To get "true" HDR you need several photos from various exposures assembled into one image.

That's half the fun of photography I think though, trying new things.

JG_Coleman · Sep 13, 2010

Yeah... these really aren't HDRs, rock3ralex. It has become quite popular to tone-map individual images... but that's not the real deal. To really create an HDR, you need to be able to blend multiple complimentary exposures.

And, by "tilted horizon", it is meant that your horizon isn't level. See the lightpost at the bottom right of Photo #2? Notice that it isn't parallel to the side of the frame. Your entire photo is skewed in the same way.... rotated roughly 5 degrees counter-clockwise (or thereabouts).