HELP with HDR!!!

[leopardforest]

I have been trying to do some HDR but it does not seem to be working. Here is what I am doing:

Shooting in RAW with three exposures normal, +2, -2
Importing to Lightroom in RAW
Exporting to my desktop in jpgs (?)
Using PS CS2 to automate> merge to HDR

I also didn't use a tripod, but I don't think that is the problem here, I would have liked to but I didn't have one at the time.

here is my results:

ss 1/160 f14

ss 1/640 f14

ss 1/2500 f14

And here is the HDR

I am just running the automation on PS to make a HDR but I dont think that I am doing it right because the results are lame. Any help would be great.

Thanks in advance!

 

[molsen]

the results are lame because there isn't much dynamic range in the shot to begin with. bright sun and dark buildings....very contrasty. no matter your exposure settings, this is how it's going to be so when you put them together, there's nothing exciting there.

try shooting at different times of the day and compare results. i bet you'll see a big difference.

also, if there's any way you can get higher up for the shot, that'll help with the HDR effect methinks because there will be the potential for more shadows and an overall higher dynamic range.

the only other thing you could try is to do one exposure that's very over exposed so you can get some light/details on the buildings. i don't know if that will be possible considering where the sun was in that shot, but try it out.

the key to getting an HDR image is for the images you use to compose it of to differ greatly in their dynamic ranges. the photos you used are kinda dark, dark, and really dark

 

[leopardforest]

so I should probably try some scene with more variation in color?

 

[molsen]

exactly!

variation in light levels, to be more precise, but variation in color is good too