Some HDR of Times Square and NYC

[jdong217]

Times Square is tricky since even at -4 EV, some of the billboards were still on the verge of being blown out. I tried my best in pp though and would like some opinions on how I did

1. Times Square at Night by justindong, on Flickr

2.
Times Square at night: the other side by justindong, on Flickr

tried to get the billboards as clear as possible

 

[cepwin]

Having spent time in NYC I love it...absolutely love it!

 

[tmL]

As a native New Yorker, great job!

 

[RxForB3]

How exactly do you do an HDR with moving people? Were the shots just taken that fast?

 

[WesternGuy]

Looks good to me - colours are a little saturated, but it seems to work here.

WesternGuy

 

[LightSpeed]

And I'm not supposed to post images in the beginners forum?
WTF?

These are better than anything I've ever done.

You're walkin on water son.
Very nice.

 

[Ankit]

The center billboard in the second one is too bright. Which software did you use, Photomatix?

 

[mhbethea]

I love it makes me miss new York sometimes

 

[manaheim]

How exactly do you do an HDR with moving people? Were the shots just taken that fast?

I was kinda wonderin' that myself.

The HDR treatment seems reasonably well done. I see a couple areas where the colors look a bit overdone, but that may have been an intentional choice on your part.

 

[molested_cow]

Are you sure these are "HDRs" and not just tone mapped?

The people move. The billboard animates. There's no way you can capture multiple (and long exposure) shots of it looking like it's a still image.

 

[jdong217]

Yes these are both full HDR. The first is with a tripod and it was with 9 exposures. The second was handheld with 3 exposures. The thing about times square is that its really bright so even at f/8 and ISO 100, the longest exposure in the first one was 1 second and the longest in the second one was 1/10.

I use photomatix to do the initial blending and it has a really great auto detect ghosting feature that I used here. Sometimes it doesn't work if the lighting is bad but it worked here.

 

[Flyer]

Were they maybe shot in RAW and made multiple copies +/- EV to get the desired results??

 

[jdong217]

Nope I actually took each image separately. I can post them later if you guys want.

I'm currently trying to fix some of the billboards in the second one but it's difficult since I only did -2,0,2. Usually that works out fine but since the range was so big in the scene I think it needed to be more

 

[Timoris]

Posting here to be auto subscribed. I am going to NYC in a month, glad I stumbled onto this thread.

jdong, and New Yorkers, if I bring a Gorillapod, would I be ok?

 

[jaxx419]

I love all the colors and especially the USA flag!