I'm really not very good at this HDR thing. Can someone help me out? Pic Inside

[Ballistics]

Altima by The Photo Major, on Flickr

I think I understand the concept of HDR but when it comes to actually trying to do it myself, I get this crap!
How can I make this better? This picture is 8 exposures combined.

 

[Majeed Badizadegan]

Try using the amount of exposures necessary to capture the DR of the scene. I don't think 8 is necessary here. When I combine too many exposures for a scene in my images, I get pollution in the highlights or shadows.

This pollution is noticeable under the vehicle where the shadow is hitting the pavement.

If you'd like to see how others would process this image, post the original bracket here.

 

[matthewo]

start out with 3, if you dont want to bracket manually, you can set the d7000 to do 2ev bracketing(3 exposures), which is a decent starting place for getting your feet wet with HDR.

at least from the picture above it seems like you got the sky to the right exposure. the car and the trees are still under exposed.

the most important thing in HDR, other then keeping your camera in the same spot, is to make sure you get every part of the image exposed correctly, that will allow you once you merge the picture to have a high dynamic range. make sure your sky, or brightest thing, is exposed correctly in 1 exposure, then make sure the darkest things are exposed correctly in another, then a few in between.

 

[jamesbjenkins]

http://www.flickr.com/photos/compressedmemories/7093382933/
Altima by The Photo Major, on Flickr

I think I understand the concept of HDR but when it comes to actually trying to do it myself, I get this crap!
How can I make this better? This picture is 8 exposures combined.

I almost always shoot 5 bracketed images. As noted above, when you shoot large brackets (7-9) you usually get lots of noise in the highlights and shadows. It's not a deal breaker if you need that much dynamic range to capture the shot properly, but in everything but the most unique lighting situations, I'd imagine a 5 shot bracket at 1 stop increments would be fine.

Look at the bright side here, your composition and exposure is just fine...


Edit: I just re-read your post and saw you're shooting a D7000 that can only shoot a 3 shot bracket. It's fine to shoot that at a 2.0 stop bracket and get mostly the same output result...

 

[that1guy]

most people like the 5-9 im always happy with 3

bump the saturation down a little the blues are a little to bright and kinda burn the eyes

besides the trees in the BG and the cracks in the streets there doesnt seem to be much detail

learn how to use layer masks in PS

 

[Ballistics]

Awesome info guys thanks.

 

[STM]

The number of images you use will depend on the image itself. Honestly, I feel like more than 5 creates more problems then it solves. In most cases, 3 will usually suffice depending on the range of EV values. Choose your over-exposure and under exposure ranges carefully, however, or you will either not get the result that you want, or you may get some weird banding in low and midrange values. It is a common misconception that your brackets always need to be "symmetrical" around the "average" one. Your brackets should reflect the areas where you want to retain texture in the low, mid and high values. And you should always have the camera on a tripod or firmly braced so all of your images are in the same "register".

 

[that1guy]

The number of images you use will depend on the image itself. Honestly, I feel like more than 5 creates more problems then it solves. In most cases, 3 will usually suffice depending on the range of EV values. Choose your over-exposure and under exposure ranges carefully, however, or you will either not get the result that you want, or you may get some weird banding in low and midrange values. It is a common misconception that your brackets always need to be "symmetrical" around the "average" one. Your brackets should reflect the areas where you want to retain texture in the low, mid and high values. And you should always have the camera on a tripod or firmly braced so all of your images are in the same "register".

what he said

also if your looking for good post processing i started off using trey ratcliff's website google him he has a free tutorial or you can pay to download some more better in depth videos he has created