5 image hdr exterior building shots with very flat light

[qleak]

I never saw the sun today, but wanted to shoot something anyway so I decided the stone buildings of the local university could be fun to shoot for some HDR practice. This is my 2nd attempt and 1st attempt where I understood I needed to tonemap after merging the files (ha ha)

1)

2)

C & C welcome, here's my own:

1) I really don't care for the angle, there's an obnoxious sign I'm going to climb on to try this one again. Since everything ended up rather dutch looking here. I didn't bother fixing the vertical.

2) I'd like to have had more of the right hand corner and less of the tree on this composition.

 

[Light Guru]

Honestly I don't thing HDR was needed for this scene. The scene does not have a High Dynamic Range therefore HDR is NOT needed.

 

[baturn]

Looks like you've got some sensor dust that could use your attention, too.

 

[KmH]

They need to get started shoring up the foundation of that building before it falls over.
In #1 the building and foreground are under exposed, about a full stop.

In all honesty as a HDR I would have to say these are failures.

How did you determine how many, and at what interval of EV, you needed to make the 5 exposures you used?
By the way, TPF has an HDR forum:
HDR Discussions | Photography Forum

 

[qleak]

How did you determine how many, and at what interval of EV, you needed to make the 5 exposures you used?
By the way, TPF has an HDR forum:
HDR Discussions | Photography Forum

Thanks for the comments everyone.

Thanks, I just took a guess at it (apparently really poorly). How do you do it?

In this instance I should have concluded, as light guru said, that the scene did not have high dynamic range to capture. I thought I could pull some interesting contrast and textures out by combining shots.

I've toyed with one of the original exposures and I may as well have just worked with one shot.

I hope it's clear from my original post that I'm rather new to HDR imaging.

 

[Light Guru]

How did you determine how many, and at what interval of EV, you needed to make the 5 exposures you used?
By the way, TPF has an HDR forum:
HDR Discussions | Photography Forum

Thanks for the comments everyone.

Thanks, I just took a guess at it (apparently really poorly). How do you do it?

In this instance I should have concluded, as light guru said, that the scene did not have high dynamic range to capture. I thought I could pull some interesting contrast and textures out by combining shots.

I've toyed with one of the original exposures and I may as well have just worked with one shot.

I hope it's clear from my original post that I'm rather new to HDR imaging.

You meeter the scene. You meter the highlights that you want to keep detail in and you meter the shadow that you want to keep details in. Then calculate how many stops different those shadows and highlights are.

DSLR cameras can capture a dynamic range of about 10 stops (meter models probably more)

 

[qleak]

You meeter the scene. You meter the highlights that you want to keep detail in and you meter the shadow that you want to keep details in. Then calculate how many stops different those shadows and highlights are.

DSLR cameras can capture a dynamic range of about 10 stops (meter models probably more)

Thanks

Okay so do you use your on camera meter? Which meter mode do you use center or spot or does it more depend on the scene?

 

[Parker219]

Whats the point of an HDR image if the sky still has pretty much NO detail?

I could have gotten a much better photo with 1 RAW photo at ISO 100 and adjusting the shadows and highlights in post.

 

[Light Guru]

Whats the point of an HDR image if the sky still has pretty much NO detail?

Bingo.

 

[Light Guru]

Okay so do you use your on camera meter? Which meter mode do you use center or spot or does it more depend on the scene?

You can use your camera meter or an external meter it does not matter. You want to use spot metering otherwise you won't get a accurate reading of the highlight and shadow values.

 

[qleak]

I could have gotten a much better photo with 1 RAW photo at ISO 100 and adjusting the shadows and highlights in post.

Good for you. I'm proud of your abilities and applaud your efforts.

 

[KmH]

Which meter mode do you use center or spot or does it more depend on the scene?

Apparently you don't yet have a good grasp of what the different light metering modes do and how to use them to your advantage.
As mentioned, to set up an HDR sequence of bracketed exposures you use spot metering, because spot metering meters the smallest portion of the scene making it the most accurate option.

Understanding Camera Metering and Exposure

 

[pgriz]

It helps to know the dynamic range of your camera. In my own case, my T1i has a reported dynamic range of about 11-11.5 stops (T1i - 500D Dynamic Range measured - FM Forums, Dynamic range and noise source - DxOMark), although in my own testing, I get an effective range of about 7-8 stops, with the upper end being about 3-3.5 stops above the "normal" exposure, and the lower end being about 4-4.5 stops below the normal exposure. This means that if I don't want to blow out a highlight, it needs to meter no more than 3 stops above the "normal" exposure. By the same reasoning, if I want to retrain some detail in the shadow area it should be more than 4 stops below the "normal" exposure.

In practice, I would use an incident meter reading to know how much light I have to work with, and with the spotmeter in the camera I'd check the readings of both the highlights and the shadows. To make the following discussion easier to follow, let's assume the ISO is set to 100, and the aperture to f/8. Let's say the highlight detail reads 1/1000 sec, and the shadow detail reads 1/15 sec. That gives me a scene dynamic range of 6 stops, quite comfortably within the dynamic range of my camera. Knowing that the upper limit of my camera is about 3 stops, I'd set the overall exposure at 1/125 (f/8, ISO 100), and I know that both highlights and shadows would be within the dynamic range of my camera.

Let's say, however, that I had a scene with a higher dynamic range. Say the shadow detail meters at 1/2 sec. That's 9 stops dynamic range difference, and I cannot get both highlights and shadows into one exposure. Now it makes sense to use HDR as I can capture in the first exposure the highlight detail (say at 1/250 sec), the midrange with a second exposure (say, 1/60 sec), and the shadow detail with a third exposure of 1/15 sec).

Let's think of an even more extreme scenario. You're shooting an interior scene with deep shadows, and an open window to a bright sunny day. In the bright sunlight, you have a light clay statue that you want to show with detail. If you spot-meter it, you may get something like 1/2000 sec. The deep shadow inside the room, may be at 4 seconds. This is a dynamic range of 13 stops. There is no way you can get all of this in one exposure. But if you could capture the dynamic range with exposures at 1/250 sec, 1/60 sec, 1/15 sec, and 1/4 sec.

 

[qleak]

It helps to know the dynamic range of your camera. In my own case, my T1i has a reported dynamic range of about 11-11.5 stops (T1i - 500D Dynamic Range measured - FM Forums, Dynamic range and noise source - DxOMark), although in my own testing, I get an effective range of about 7-8 stops, with the upper end being about 3-3.5 stops above the "normal" exposure, and the lower end being about 4-4.5 stops below the normal exposure. This means that if I don't want to blow out a highlight, it needs to meter no more than 3 stops above the "normal" exposure. By the same reasoning, if I want to retrain some detail in the shadow area it should be more than 4 stops below the "normal" exposure.

In practice, I would use an incident meter reading to know how much light I have to work with, and with the spotmeter in the camera I'd check the readings of both the highlights and the shadows. To make the following discussion easier to follow, let's assume the ISO is set to 100, and the aperture to f/8. Let's say the highlight detail reads 1/1000 sec, and the shadow detail reads 1/15 sec. That gives me a scene dynamic range of 6 stops, quite comfortably within the dynamic range of my camera. Knowing that the upper limit of my camera is about 3 stops, I'd set the overall exposure at 1/125 (f/8, ISO 100), and I know that both highlights and shadows would be within the dynamic range of my camera.

Let's say, however, that I had a scene with a higher dynamic range. Say the shadow detail meters at 1/2 sec. That's 9 stops dynamic range difference, and I cannot get both highlights and shadows into one exposure. Now it makes sense to use HDR as I can capture in the first exposure the highlight detail (say at 1/250 sec), the midrange with a second exposure (say, 1/60 sec), and the shadow detail with a third exposure of 1/15 sec).

Let's think of an even more extreme scenario. You're shooting an interior scene with deep shadows, and an open window to a bright sunny day. In the bright sunlight, you have a light clay statue that you want to show with detail. If you spot-meter it, you may get something like 1/2000 sec. The deep shadow inside the room, may be at 4 seconds. This is a dynamic range of 13 stops. There is no way you can get all of this in one exposure. But if you could capture the dynamic range with exposures at 1/250 sec, 1/60 sec, 1/15 sec, and 1/4 sec.

I hadn't thought of incident metering a scene. My old Gossen LunaPro-F may reappear in my bag. It had an untimely exit when I learned it wasn't metering my SB700 correctly but it still works great for regular exposures.

Very nice post. Thank you

 

[qleak]

Which meter mode do you use center or spot or does it more depend on the scene?

Apparently you don't yet have a good grasp of what the different light metering modes do and how to use them to your advantage.
As mentioned, to set up an HDR sequence of bracketed exposures you use spot metering, because spot metering meters the smallest portion of the scene making it the most accurate option.

Understanding Camera Metering and Exposure

Thanks I think I was thrown off by the Nikon setting adjusting the size of the center weighted portion (b4 on the d7100). It still meters the whole frame.. it sure would be handier if it was a partial metering mentioned in your article.