Some of my HDR experiences.

[sixdaemonbag]

A little timeline in images of my progression into HDR. I'm using a car theme here rather than trying to cram in landscapes and other things just to make it a little easier to illustrate where I've been and where I'm at.

1.) This was my first HDR. Bland subject and location, but hey, it was a "first". I didn't even keep the originals, I had to convert a tiff image this afternoon of the finished HDR so I could post it. Processing here is all CS3.

2.) An improved effort from my next outing specifically shooting for HDR. There's still a lot of bark left on this one too if you get into it. This was the first HDR I did that I felt really captured the true depth of the scene as my eyes saw it. Again, All CS3

3.) More time, more practice, slightly less realism. It was almost exactly what I was aiming for when I was done, almost. I keep scribbling down a note to clone out the head and keep forgetting. This one's Photomatix4 + CS3 post.

I'll close with this one, which is the most recent effort. Again, Photomatix4 and CS3

 

[OrionsByte]

I'm not sure any of these shots really "needed" HDR treatment, but your last two are definitely better than the first two.

What about the scenes made you want to shoot them as an HDR?

 

[sixdaemonbag]

I'm not sure any of these shots really "needed" HDR treatment, but your last two are definitely better than the first two.

What about the scenes made you want to shoot them as an HDR?

The first 3 were various learning exercises. #1 was just to see if I grasped the basic steps involved to produce an HDR using the tools I had available to me. The lesson in #2 was about learning how to effectively Bracket shots at different apertures and about how many shots in a set (and what distance apart) made for a good HDR. I think I took close to 200 exposures that day and did this image up several different ways before I settled on this one. In #3, I loved the car itself and wanted to try and pull the detail in the paint and chrome out. I took several set of 3 exposures at different stops and then brought them home to play with. This was my first real exposure to photomatix as well on the processing side.

The last one was a bit of a different story. The car in question belongs to a friend of mine and is immaculate inside and out. I had this idea to show it more aged looking when he was describing the condition of some of the pieces he had to start with, and this image just sort of morphed out of that discussion. I knew I could get exactly what I was thinking of using HDR techniques pretty easily, so I went that route.