My first try on HDR

[WilcoB]

I'm a total newbie to this but I think some picture worked out pretty well, please let me know what you think or what to improve. I noticed some picture are not perfectly horizontal..
Also a little question about HDR in general, how can I prevent the so called "ghosting" and "fuzzy/blurry" view on my pictures, the answer to this will help me alot!
I did shot from a tripod so I know that little tip

I'm posting every single HDR, so they are not all great and all but I want to know what I can improve about the HDR itself and the compositioning of the shot.
I highly appreciate every sort of criticism!

You can find the photo's at this link because I don't know how to put them in the actual post:blushing:..
Wilco Baas

 

[ronlane]

Are you using a tripod when you take the bracketed photos? If not, this could be part of the problem. I briefly looked at your link, but didnt' take a lot of time to review them. You will most likely get more response if you post a couple of the HDR pictures on here.

One other thing for me about your pictures is that they are a little over cooked on the saturation for my taste.

 

[Light Guru]

Your color HDRs are to over processed for my taste.

Also I dont think that any of those scenes has a big enough dynamic range to even need to use HDR.

 

[WilcoB]

Well about the saturation part it's a difference for everybody but, I did alot of more research on it and I found out that indeed the dynamic range in the pictures was not big enough. I did shoot these pictures on a tripod but I can't figure out why there is "ghosting" in it.. I aslo found out that my aperture was set very wrong.. It was on 8.0 ... So it was a great learning experience for me and I hope they will become better.

 

[WilcoB]

Was the compostion good to you or..? I'm totally new and I seriously want to improve myself.

 

[ronlane]

Post a picture on here where you are seeing the ghosting.

 

[weepete]

Keep shooting. Compositianally you have some good ideas, nice use of perspective and leading lines. I don't mind the slightly soft and pushed too far look in most of these shots but I think the subject matter is a bit weak and doesn't really grab me. The shot of the church is ok but the cars kinda spoil it for me, the picture of the island and the one with the boats lacks depth and one has a cut off plant in the foreground. The picture of the guys on the stairs is ok but there's no emotional engagement in the subjects. I think your best one is the line of trees with the city in the background, that shot is quite good if a bit sterile.

 

[WilcoB]

Thanks Weepete, that's the exact advise/criticism I wanted to see! About the soft look, that's what is called "ghosting" right? Or can you only "achieve ghosting" with moving things?
Also personally I hate the soft look, do you know how I can remove that? I was thinking about putting my aperture to about f18.

 

[robertandrewphoto]

I aslo found out that my aperture was set very wrong.. It was on 8.0 ...

What you just said right there is very wrong. f/8 happens to be my preferred aperture setting when taking an HDR. I will take my sets at f/8, f/11, and f/14 with about 4-7 photos in each set. There is no right or wrong way to do it, but I find anything larger than f/8 comes with a little too much noise for my liking, and smaller than f/14 can cause more ghosting.

As for your more recent post on ghosting: ghosting is when a subject in the photo moves between exposures and the HDR algorithms can not compensate for the motion, which then results in a combination of the two images where the subject has changed. Try avoiding scenes with water, or a windy day, at first. It will make your time much easier. Good luck shooting.

 

[Eclectix]

The soft glow I think you are referring to is probably an artifact of the process you are using to merge the exposures into one image. What software are you using? Some techniques and software programs have a tendency to do this much more than others. To me it is also distracting.