want to try HDR, need some help

[pixmedic]

I have seen a few postings on HDR pics, and i looked it up online and thought I would give it a try on my nikon D90. mostly for kicks and to try something new.
I think I might have a few technical issues actually taking the photos. I have photomatix which was recommended online for compiling the HDR pic from the 3 I take.

should I be shooting in RAW or JPEG or does it matter?
I had the D90 set on 3F 2.0, is this correct?
also, will it automatically change the exposure as I take 3 pics in a row? some of the online "tutorials" were a little vague on this.

I apologize if HDR photos are out of my experience league at the moment, just thought they looked cool =)
I also was not sure about the settings for photomatix as there were several "preset" photo types.
Curious to know what the experienced HDR people are using to make them and what settings they use.

 

[slackercruster]

I shoot RAW+, but jpeg is Ok too.

My Pentax auto brackets so your should, but I don't know Canon. .

Good luck!

 

[HughGuessWho]

I always shoot RAW but I dont have much luck running RAW files through Photomatix. They always seem to be quite noisy, but a lot of people do. Simply put, you need at least 3 shots... one correctly exposed, one over exposed and one under exposed. Then, import them into Photomatix, create an HDR file, and then adjust to your liking.
Photomatix actually has a pretty good tutorial on their website. It's pretty short and sweet, but will get you off to a good start and then just experiment from there until you find what you like.
Give it a short and then post your results in the HDR forum. There are several people much better than I am that will give you helpful critique.

 

[pixmedic]

thanks, I will give their tutorial a looksie.
my D90 does auto bracket, so now its just a matter of focus and lighting (and subject matter) and figuring out the finer points of photomatix =)
i probably should have gotten more experience before trying to mess with something like HDR, but I saw it and had to try it for myself.

 

[HughGuessWho]

It's really not that difficult once you see it done once. Then, it's just a matter of getting a grasp on how all of the levels work.
Toy around with it. You will probably get hooked on it. It can be quite enjoyable.

 

[TCampbell]

Which f-stop you use is entirely up to you and depends on the depth of field you'd like to have. The important bit is that when you take the three exposures, vary the exposure based on shutter speed ... not f-stop (leave the f-stop alone). Otherwise each photo will have a different depth of field and that'll make it hard to merge.

Since the point of HDR is to increase dynamic range, by all means you should shoot in RAW. RAW has considerably more dynamic range than JPEG (JPEG has maybe 5 stops "usable" stops of dynamic range vs. RAW which could have nearly 11 stops of "usable" dynamic range based on the same standards of what qualifies as "usable".)

 

[Solarflare]

Well, how many stops RAW has actually depends upon the respective RAW format.

For example, my own D5100 has 14 bits depth precision in the A/D converter, thus it has 14 stops dynamic range available.