My first ever attempt at HDR

[JRob]

Well ive been reading up on HDR and thought I would try it with my old camera. It is a piece of junk but oh well. It will keep my mind off waiting for my new rebel xt(which will be here wednesday).
Here it is. It has a watermark because I am using the trial version of Photomatix HDR software. I dont have photoshop only gimp and I dont know if gimp can do HDR.

That was using 5 pics -2, -1, 0, +1, +2 EV ISO 100 on a Samsung Digimax 420.
Here is another one I just did of my desk at work. I really need a better tripod the legs are like toothpicks and its shakey.

Sorry about how blurry they are, I blame my tripod. These were just quick test shots to play around with.
Any tips or tricks you all know to make this work better?
Constructive criticism welcome.
James

 

[Sideburns]

they are both blotchy and....well, I don't like them.

Everything is just glowing around the frame, and is very distracting...and the rest of the picture is really dark. I'm not sure how to fix it, cause I haven't used photomatix....
I do my HDR merging in photoshop.

 

[JRob]

they are both blotchy and....well, I don't like them.

Everything is just glowing around the frame, and is very distracting...and the rest of the picture is really dark. I'm not sure how to fix it, cause I haven't used photomatix....
I do my HDR merging in photoshop.

Yeah, I really dont like the second one at all. And the first I could probably make brighter. I am learning all of this still and have a lot of work to do.

 

[DSLR noob]

not bad for a first try but it seems you used scenes that didn't NEED HDR and the expanded range was very limited. Don't let that bother you though! Still better than any attempts I've made and HDR is hard.

 

[JRob]

Here is one I did today. Had better lighting. It is still dark however. I worked on it for an hour and couldnt get it brighter. I dont have Photoshop either.