Might be my best HDR yet!

[lextalionis]

The family spent the holidays here in central Missouri out in the country. I did a lot of hiking to find this abandoned shed.

Taken with a Canon 30D and Canon EF-S 17-55mm f/2.8 IS lens. Here are the 3 AEB exposures resulting in the final HDR image. HDR generated with Photomatix. Enjoy!

-2 ev

normal exposure

+2 ev

Final HDR

-Roy

 

[leopardforest]

very nice! i like how the mood changes from the first three compared to when they are put together!

 

[m1a1fan]

I like the way the shed and the sky turned out.

The grass seems to be "glowing" a bit to much though.

 

[Coldow91]

I really like it! The grass does seem to be glowing but the sky and barn look great! HDR makes for some cool looking skies.

 

[Ls3D]

Pretty cool! I tried one today in PS, but want to re-shoot before posting anything. The exposure bracketing on my 40D worked quite nicely.

In your HDR I would be tempted to put some blue back in the sky, but what do I know.

-Shea

 

[Trenton Romulox]

I like it, very atmospheric.

 

[chente922]

pretty cool HDR, i like the way u posted it, the diferents exposures first and then the result.. nice

 

[GeorgeUK]

Very nice :thumbup:

*Makes mental note to learn how to do HDR images*

 

[molsen]

i like it! personally, i like the glowing grass effect

 

[lextalionis]

Very nice :thumbup:

*Makes mental note to learn how to do HDR images*

Thanks everyone for the comments.

George...to add more to that mental note...a bit about my work-flow:

1. These three were taken hand-held only because my tripod is too big to lug on "off the beaten path" type ventures; otherwise, I try to always use my tripod when shooting landscape stills. Luckily at ISO 100 and ~ f/8 it was light enough to keep the exposures relatively quick. I did use "High" frame rate to shoot these three AEB shots.

2. Honestly folks, this is probably my best HDR only because the results lack so many of the downsides of my method to produce HDR. Generally I get a lot of grain added to the final Photomatix 16bit tiff and I also get a lot of halo/glow around edges which often look artificial and over-done. For this HDR the glowing grass was the only aspect I wish could have been toned down some…although it does carry some character.

My work-flow:

1. Always shoot RAW and ISO 100 when using Photomatix...even with 100 the process generates additional grain/noise. At anything above 100 it becomes very hard for me to cope with.
2. Shoot 3 AEB shots around -1.5 to -2 , then 0 EV, then +1.5 to +2 (I've done two sets of 3 AEB shots (6 shots total) -2, -1.5, 0, +1.5, +2 (of course you negate the extra 0 EV) and really haven't seen much benefit).
3. Using PhotoMatix perform the "Generate HDR" and select the 3 RAW images (I can confirm that PhotoMatix reads Canon 30D RAW's). Once the auto-aligning is complete and the HDR preview is generated, then go to "Tone Mapping" and select 16bit and 1024 resolution to see a better output preview. Leave the "tone mapping method" as default (I forgot its name and don't have the app open to translate exact menu/items, I will product a more in-depth tutorial on my site with app screenshots soon).
4. The rest is up to you and how you feel the preview looks. I generally hover around 85% strength on HDR (top slider bar), 25% color saturation, mid-range on the light smoothing radio buttons, around 20% from the left on the slider for white, 5% from the left on the slider for black, and about 10% from the left on the slider for gamma (<= these values are always subjective as aforementioned states).
5. Fiddle with these and other settings to likening and then apply and save as 16bit tiff.
6. Open in PS and down-convert to 8-bit color and save as jpg at 12/full quality.
7. Open in Bibble Pro 4.9 and use Noise Ninja at about 30% level to help remove the artificial grain PhotoMatix produced. Maybe a bit of sharpen; however, IMHO I feel it sometimes counter-acts Noise Ninja for this process. Usually no other enhancements are done (unlike my normal RAW work-flow using Bibble Pro). Note, there are many other noise removal/smoothing apps. out there, I'm just stating what I use. Then output via Bibble as 100% quality jpg.

Yes, unfortunately I've done not one, but two jpg conversions...a big no-no eh? I'm not a PS buff, but I'm willing to wager that there's a better way to remove the grain w/in PS in 16bit tiff mode and just do one jpg conversion.

Tips: I've shot wonderful subjects and foregrounds with a plain, nearly zero contrast cloudy sky and I usually get very poor grainy, almost like it's raining results. So try to shoot high "contrasty" cloudy sky.

Never shoot where any of the subject has a large foot-print of black space..black space produces horrible noise in my experience.

Okay, time to retire...been a long day on the road.

Cheers!
Roy

 

[hawkeye]

I know I can get slandered for saying it, but I usually dislike hdr's

In this case, it works awesomely. Wow, the perfect example of when to do it, and how to do it right to make the final really pop

 

[jlbrew3]

I love HDRs and this a great one, tons of atmosphere!