Recent HDRs

shorty6049 · Apr 23, 2007

Took these yesterday, and since I dont have a specific question, i'll post them here. What do you think ?

1

2

3

New Hampshire · Apr 23, 2007

They are a little darker than I like. But other than that there is some good composition, and the subjects are interesting enough to hold my attention.

Good job.

Brian

nabero · Apr 23, 2007

love #2...great moody/sinister/creepy feeling

Tangerini · Apr 23, 2007

nabero said:
love #2...great moody/sinister/creepy feeling

Yup yup yup.. I was going to say the same thing

zendianah · Apr 23, 2007

nabero said:
love #2...great moody/sinister/creepy feeling

What she said..........

Tony, Love the darkness... My favorite is #1. I like the sky very cool.

shorty6049 · Apr 23, 2007

thanks everyone, keep up the comments, i'm glad most of you like these!

AUZambo · Apr 23, 2007

I agree with #2 being the best of the three. The background is distracting me in #1.

Also, what exactly is HDR? I know it stands for "high dynamic range," but don't know much more than that. Is it a photo-editing technique, a type of lens, a mode on professional level SLRs (like RAW), or something else?

shorty6049 · Apr 23, 2007

HDR is basically taking 2 or more photos of different exposures , and blending their best characteristics in a photo editing program. You can also use 1 RAW file to do it, (which is what i did in the first image) and just adjust the exposure up and down and save it as 3 files . Photoshop has a HDR feature, photomatix (which i used) also does it well.

xfloggingkylex · Apr 23, 2007

AUZambo said:
I agree with #2 being the best of the three. The background is distracting me in #1.

Also, what exactly is HDR? I know it stands for "high dynamic range," but don't know much more than that. Is it a photo-editing technique, a type of lens, a mode on professional level SLRs (like RAW), or something else?

http://hdrphotos.net/

they have great tutorials on that site.

Your HDR technique is greatly improving from the original attempts you have posted. Great job!

So how did you do these? Red filtered B&W and then blend together? or did you blend and then turn to B&W? Very dramatic.

Aquarium Dreams · Apr 23, 2007

Beautiful! Very moody.

shorty6049 · Apr 24, 2007

thanks everyone, kyle, that really means a lot to me. Basically what i did, was took pictures of things that were actually interesting or at least a little mysterious looking. no filters used, the clouds were stormy clouds so they worked well. I just did the HDR in photomatix, and then for the last two just did black and white conversion with a technique Matt Perko told me about, and the first one i just converted the red channel to BW

shorty6049 · Apr 25, 2007

does anyone NOT like these? i got a lot of good comments on them, but not much criticism. (i'm fine if there isnt of course!) But if anyone has anything that they think i could improve on, please let me know!- Thanks- Tony

gizmo2071 · Apr 26, 2007

The criticism that I have is subjective into what I think is wrong.

1) I find it to be a very mundane subject. It would have to be quite a shot for me to find a hydrant remotely interesting. Sure you did a good job with the effect, but it does nothing for me at all.

2) I quite like this shot, but (of course there is a but) the sides of the shots are to busy and distract from the main subject. The building looks great, the hdr really brought out the texture, but the trees and the little sign on the sides detract from the image in my eyes... maybe a portrait shot.

3) As witht he first, the subject does nothing for me. It just looks very flat to me, like taking a picture of a brick wall with some windows. The HDR is the only thing that does anything for me in this shot and thats the brick texture, but I can't rely on the HDR to make the picture, the HDR should add to what is already a good picture.

So thats my words worth.

julius · Apr 26, 2007

#2 is my favourite in the series.

If you are after critique, (I'm no professional so take this however you want), I am not a huge fan of number 1. The HDR effect on the bokeh (blurred bg) gives it a strange effect that I don't find very appealing. This is especially apparent around the windows. To me it looks as though it is over-sharpened but still out of focus. I am not sure if this is due to the change in exposure having an impact on the depth of field (so the pixels don't line up correctly) but it is the first thing my eyes are drawn to. If you were shooting shutter speed priority and changing your exposure using the +/- EV function, the aperture would change and thus the DoF.