HDR Sunset from my backyard

Hartley · Jul 3, 2010

Hi All,

I've been playing around with HDR (FDR Tools) and this is the first one I've been willing to show..:blushing:

I took this in my backyard a couple of days ago - handheld, but steadied against the pool fence seemed to work - the alignment was only a couple pixels. Yes, I should have cropped out the house, but I was more interested in getting the Bougainvillas and Oleander blossoms along with the sun on the rain shafts.

What do you think?

Hartley

dak1b · Jul 4, 2010

the only thing I like about this pic is how the light looks coming thru the clouds.

Hartley · Jul 6, 2010

Hi dak,

OK, fair enuff - the rain illuminated by the setting sun really is the only striking thing going on - and the house and palm trees are just plain annoying..::blushing:

Here's one of the original three exposures from the triplet I used to make the HDR - the one that is "properly" exposed (or so my T1i thought):

The annoying house is pretty muted (tho the palm trees remain) but the oleanders and bougainvilla are just silhouettes. I guess my question is - does bringing the foreground up to be visible make the picture better, or not? Here's another one from the same time frame, without the house or palm trees, maybe it's less distracting..

I hope I'm not annoying y'all - I'm trying to figure all this stuffe out..

Hartley

iAstonish · Jul 6, 2010

The house in the bottom left corner and the rose bush in the bottom right corner are both distracting. I do like the color of the sky, but I don't feel that the colors mesh well with the rest of the picture.

Hartley · Jul 8, 2010

Yeah, they are - I suppose I didn't see it because they're MY house and bougainvillas..

This is just a little tweak of the original, and the bottom cropped off. Short of a chain saw, I'm not gonna get much done about the palm trees.

Is that less distracting?

Hartley

HikinMike · Jul 8, 2010

Hartley said:
Yeah, they are - I suppose I didn't see it because they're MY house and bougainvillas..

This is just a little tweak of the original, and the bottom cropped off. Short of a chain saw, I'm not gonna get much done about the palm trees.

Is that less distracting?

Hartley

Composition-wise, I like this, but clone out the left Palm Tree (the one that used to be above your house). I'd also clone some of the misc. I just don't care for that type of HDR processing that you did on the original post.