How to create better HDR photo's...?

[Rogierbos]

Hi,
I recently completed an assignment in which I had to use quite a bit of HDR. I thought my HDR skills were OK, but this assignment proved to be very challenging. I was asked to photograph a 5 star hotel here in Holland, which is situated right on the beach. The management of the hotel really wanted to see the beach and the sea through the large windows, but the different in light between inside and outside was huge - sometimes as much as 7 or 8 stops.

I want to show you some of my images (below) and ask you how I might have done better. A larger web gallery can be found here:
Huis Ter Duin

My workflow:
Photography with Nikon D800, Raw, on tripod. Sometimes 3 images 1 stop apart, sometimes 5, sometimes 7. Triggered with remote.
Images in to Lightroom (Apple Mac pro). HDR created with JPG's in Nik HDR Efex Pro 2 (first images), later with Photomatix (usually tonemapped). Export as Tiff to Photoshop CS6 for final edits (luminosity masks, removal of smoke detectors, etc.

I am relatively OK with the images in this gallery, but not very enthusiastic. I find the images quite grungy, the colours a little garish... I find there is still too much blown out detail, too much light flare...

I'm wondering how I could have done better. The photo editing took tons more time than I had budgetted already. I wonder if I should have used large lights more (I did for some of the images), but that slows me down even more during the shoot (I work alone).

Any comments you have are very welcome!

 

[Ilovemycam]

No reply on the question. But I looked at your site. Great stuff.

 

[ronlane]

Welcome to the site. I cannot help you improve your HDR but I will say this. If those are photos of a hotel or conference center, I would be approaching them to see if they would like to purchase them for advertising use. You have really done well with these and not over-cooked them.

 

[KmH]

You need at least 1 exposure for each scene that is correctly exposed for the whatever is outside the window if you don't want the windows overexposed.

No doubt, that will make the interior very dark in that 1 exposure

If you want more lighting detail use 1/2 stop EV steps instead of full stop EV steps.

Yes, I think you should have used supplemental lighting inside.

Don't use JPEGs to merge to HDR, use Raw files or TIFFs. Since you use a D800 that's going to make huge files but you need to retain the bit depth for editing.
I recommend using Photomatix.

 

[Light Guru]

I am relatively OK with the images in this gallery, but not very enthusiastic. I find the images quite grungy, the colours a little garish... I find there is still too much blown out detail, too much light flare...

These images are NOT grungy.If you take them further to not blow out any detail they will be extremely grungy and will look vary unnatural.

 

[pixelwhip]

3 x images 1 stop apart isn't enough IMHO.. If i was shooting only 3 images i'd make the brackets 2x stops apart. you'll get more info & be able to produce a nicer result.

i say this because i feel in some of your shots you could have captured more of a view from the outside windows (hence more range).. but otherwise your shots are nice.

also when I HDR i like to desaturate a bit, i feel HDR can over-emphasise colour in some situations.

 

[Light Guru]

3 x images 1 stop apart isn't enough IMHO.. If i was shooting only 3 images i'd make the brackets 2x stops apart. you'll get more info & be able to produce a nicer result.

i say this because i feel in some of your shots you could have captured more of a view from the outside windows (hence more range).. but otherwise your shots are nice.

also when I HDR i like to desaturate a bit, i feel HDR can over-emphasise colour in some situations.

The better way to do it is to set your meter mode on the camera to spot metering measure the shadow area where you want to keep detail and measure the highlight area where you want to keep detail and if the number of stops between the two is greater then the number of stops your camera can deliver in dynamic range then shoot one exposure for each stop over and under the dynamic range your camera can deliver, or you could also shoot one exposure for each stop in between our highlight and shadow.

Understanding the Zone System will greatly improve your photography including HDR.

 

[Rogierbos]

Thanks for all the feedback. I think some of your comments are very helpful!

Below is an HDR image I shot today, of a river barge here in Rotterdam. It is the view of the cockpit.

The image is better because I 1. chose better starting and finishing images (to start a picture with detail in the highlights and to finish a picture with detail in the lowlights), and 2. because I exported 16bit Tiff's out of Lightroom into Photomatix.

I am wondering, Light Guru, how understanding the Zone system is going to help me. I may be mistaken, bit I feel I have an OK grasp as it is... what do you see in my images to suggest otherwise?

Rogier

 

[jake337]

You could maybe shoot my friend over on another forum a message. He does a lot of panoramic HDR's, indoor ones as well. He's a nice fellow and might be able to give some pointers if he has time.

Flickr: Cem_Usakligil's Photostream

Photography by Cem Usakligil Home Page

 

[480sparky]

..................Below is an HDR image I shot today, of a river barge here in Rotterdam. It is the view of the cockpit.

The image is better because I 1. chose better starting and finishing images (to start a picture with detail in the highlights and to finish a picture with detail in the lowlights), and 2. because I exported 16bit Tiff's out of Lightroom into Photomatix.

I am wondering, Light Guru, how understanding the Zone system is going to help me. I may be mistaken, bit I feel I have an OK grasp as it is... what do you see in my images to suggest otherwise?

Rogier

I still see a lot of blown-out highlights.

 

[Light Guru]

I am wondering, Light Guru, how understanding the Zone system is going to help me. I may be mistaken, bit I feel I have an OK grasp as it is... what do you see in my images to suggest otherwise?

The biggest thing is just simply being aware of the range of light in front of you. 99.999% of people who make an HDR image just set their camera to automatically op off a set of bracketed images. The better way is to spot meter your highlights and shadows actually know what the dynamic range is in front of you and how much of a dynamic range you want to show in your images.

Its important to understand that deep shadows and bright highlights are important in an image for it to look right to the human eye.

The total dynamic range the eye can see is about 20 stops, BUT it is important to know that you cannot see that whole range simultaneously. The actual range you can see simultaneously is about 6.5.

So when people use HDR to to show a really broad range of say 10 stops for example that image is just not going to look right.

I'm not saying that your images are bad at all. Some of them may not actually need HDR though.

Another thing that is often a better alternative to doing HDR and tonemaping is doing exposure blending in Photoshop. The results are more realistic then most HDR images.

 

[Light Guru]

I still see a lot of blown-out highlights.

In some cases if you get rid of ALL the blown highlights the image would come out looking funny.

 

[bart2]

Make sure you expose for the window!The rest of the frame should come out almost black if the exposer was correct.I always expose for the extremes.I normaly use 6-9 frames.

 

[HughGuessWho]

There is no magic formula for a good HDR image. Anyone that says they have the perfect recipe is simply wrong. The number of exposures required and the steps between depends on the dynamic range in the image you are taking, the dynamic range your camera is capable of capturing and the look you are going for. Too many images can cause worse results than no enough, in many cases. Every situation is different.