A couple more HDR shrine shots

chakalakasp · Jan 31, 2007

(from http://www.flickr.com/photos/digicana/375198774/ ) -- 1280 px version can be found there.

(from http://www.flickr.com/photos/digicana/374254371/ )

For a comparison of HDR vs. non HDR, here is one of the input shots that went into the second HDR above (11 shots were merged, total, each 1 EV apart):

This shrine is between Omaha and Lincoln, Nebraska, off of I-80.

LaFoto · Jan 31, 2007

The second is nice, I really like that one!!!
And I had always before thought it was a kind of carriage (when I saw the HDR shots of your wife in this). I never recognised this for ... what do you call it? "Shrine"? Is that the same as or similar to a church then?

newrmdmike · Jan 31, 2007

i'm curious about heating in this building . . . is it just cold when its cold?

or is there radient heating in the floor?

i feel like i've seen this building before (outside of the forum) and other buildings similar to it. its very interesting.

Mohain · Jan 31, 2007

Cool building. Love the second shot. I think the shadow contrast needs a little boost tho.

runninglance · Jan 31, 2007

Number two is incredible.

LongDucDong · Jan 31, 2007

#2 is the money shot. #1 is nice, but I like the sunset included in #2. #3 is too overexposed in areas, the sun being completely burned out (no pun intended).

chakalakasp · Jan 31, 2007

LongDucDong said:
#2 is the money shot. #1 is nice, but I like the sunset included in #2. #3 is too overexposed in areas, the sun being completely burned out (no pun intended).

I like #1 the best, but only at the huge size.

#3 is only there to demonstrate what the shot would look like if one did not use something like HDR downsampling to compress the large dynamic range.

I like to envision HDR like parts of a photograph. Say you have an image the is 5000 pixels wide and a monitor that can only display 1024 pixels. You can either take a slice of the image that is 1024 pixels wide and display that or you can compress the image down so that it is now 1024 pixels wide. With the former, you retain detail but lose the "big picture". With the latter, you retain the big picture, but lose detail. HDR is similar in that you can either take a slice of the dynamic range (i.e., one shot, exposed for whatever you think is most important to be exposed correctly), staying closer the correct contrast ratio for those things that fall within the sampled dynamic range, or you can compress the range (i.e., sample the whole range with many shots, merge them, and then downsample them), which preserves the detail that the eye sees as a whole, but violates the contrast ratio that they eye sees. The sun is thousands of times as bright as the interior of the church, but you can't show that on today's monitors.

outlier · Feb 1, 2007

Two is amazing! Thanks for including the other shot to see how the HDR enhances the effect. Very very nice. Love the building.

kestrel0222 · Feb 1, 2007

Beautiful shots!!! My favorite is #2

scoami · Feb 1, 2007

These shots are incredible! I am just getting into photgraphy, and would really like to try this. Is it hard to do? If someone could be so kind as to point me in the right direction, I would greatly appreciate it.

markc · Feb 1, 2007

I hate to be the dissenter, but #2 looks rather flat to me. I suspect that you might have used more shots than you needed. 11 sounds like a lot. In the third shot, the highlights may be blown, but it doesn't look like the shadows are anywhere near blocked up. If the shadows in the shot on darker than that one are ok, you could leave this shot and any brighter than it out of the group.