HDR Shots

[zeppelin]

I decided to finally mess around with/figure out some HDR since I've gotten a tripod and the Photomatix plug-in for CS2. It's really cool, and it makes photographs so much better. Here's a couple I did of my car, and post your own HDR photographs (cars or otherwise) because I love the effect, and would like to see what others have come up with.

This one has a really cool eerie feel to it, I wish I'd attempted this earlier.


It's nice to be able to include the sky and not have completely blown-out highlights.

[NSXType-R]

What's HDR?

Some editing tool? (I assume.)

Those shots look very nice BTW.

[fisetdavid26]

It's nice zeppelin. I love the results, especially the first pic. I have to agree on the eerie feel, there's something in the picture that makes the non-initiated guy in photography (like myself) say "there's something rather strange but cool about that pic!"

Nice car btw.

[my porsche]

HDR is "High Dynamic Range" or the values of shadows and highlights in a picture. HDR pictures have taken several exposures of the same scene (or you can cheat and take one using CS2 and make them darker or lighter) and combines them to create a more even exposure with much more detail in the shadows and highlights.

I'll post a few of mine in a few minutes from the other computer.

[my porsche]

I have two more that i just can't seem to find...but here are the ones i can find.






EDIT: I forgot, this was going to be a kind of comparison. The first is an HDR done with 11 different exposures and the second (one with the pond) was one that I split into different ones in photoshop then used photomatix to convert to HDR. You can see the first is far better than the second.

[my porsche]

Here are the other two, nothing spectacular because they were "1-shot"s that i changed to HDR

[70cuda88]

where do you get HDR, how do you put them together? do you need a special program or what?

[my porsche]

I use photomatix pro.

to put them together you need a tripod and camera.

look on www.luminouslandscape.com there is a tutorial on taking the actual shots. then pop them in photomatix, and voila.

[Sledgehammer]

I dont think the website worked my porsche.. Can you re-link?

[zeppelin]

Thanks all for the comments everyone

my_porsche explained it well. I find HDR allows images to look more natural, and closer to how your own eye would see it. Here are a couple helpful links I dug up about HDR:

Using Photomatix
Landscapes. This one's a really in depth article on HDR and landscape photography.

And nice pics my_porsche, that first one is especially amazing. What building is that, is that in Dallas?

[2ndclasscitizen]

Yo can also to an extent create a HDR-effect when taking the shot, i.e without post-processing

[Ingolstadt]

Hi, I'm really new to photography and i must say I'm intrigue by HDR. Could someone shed some light here? You guys mentioned it's actually a merging of multiple shots of a single scene with different exposure values, i could somehow understand that, but when it comes to merging (which Photomatix was mentioned many times) is it a specific tool to merge photos? In which it will select the best exposure of different depths from multiple photos and merge them?

EDIT: I've read the hdr101 link, had a basic grasp of it. Will try it. But welcome tips. First off:

Which camera should i get?

I first contemplated on Panasonic's FZ50, I had a soft spot for Sony's R1 (but the lack of video kinda pulled me back), is it wise getting into DSLRs? For i don't think i'll spend loads on different lenses when I start to learn more... It's kinda hard not to think of Nikon's D80 which i never heard anything bad about it. Which is recommended? thnks

Which which?

[2ndclasscitizen]

If you can afford a DSLR, go try one in your price range. Hold it, play with it, then get the one that feels most comfortable. It's no point asking here because I'll tell you to buy Pentax, Colin and Rik will say Nikon, and all the little children with Rebels will tell you to buy Canon.

[Wouter Melissen]

If you can afford a DSLR, go try one in your price range. Hold it, play with it, then get the one that feels most comfortable. It's no point asking here because I'll tell you to buy Pentax, Colin and Rik will say Nikon, and all the little children with Rebels will tell you to buy Canon.

Yes them and all the professionals with the 1Ds.

[2ndclasscitizen]

Yes them and all the professionals with the 1Ds.

Not everybody's a professional and short of the 1D and 1Ds, maybe the 5D as well, every Canon model isn't as good as others on the market.