My First Semi-Embarrassing Attempts at HDR

As we talked about on the 88th episode of The Digital Photography Show, I recently began my first foray into the wonderful world of HDR. 

A number of things spurred me to try my hand at this new way of processing my images: the urgings of my co-host Michael, the terrific examples of show-friend Jeff Revell, and an inspirational email from listener Laurence W.

I'm also fortunate enough to to have an account with xTrain, which has a fantastic online training course taught by Ben Wilmore. After watching that class, and downloading Photomatix's software, I was ready to tackle my first HDRs. How did they turn out? Here's one; follow the jump to see more.

When you get into HDR -as Ben Gilmore so expertly demonstrates on his xTrain course, you can manipulate the image to look fairly realistic or more illustrative. The above image was kind of a fanciful one. I purposefully left some darker shadows on the right to add a little mystery to the show - I could have brought up all that shadow detail with Photomatix.

Since HDR's involve multiple exposures, people don't make the best subjects for them. Not, at least, if they're moving. If you look at my two kids, you'll see one's head is kind of ghosted, while the other has two faces. (In real life, he only has one.)

Of course, if your subject's a bit of a slacker, like this guy, he won't move enough to be a problem. 

I asked Michael which of the following pictures he liked most - he suggested I include them all, so that you could get a sense of how much you can manipulate an HDR to look as true-to-life or manipulated as you want. 

If you want to try HDR's, you can download a Photomatix trial for free. If you want to buy it, you can use the code negotiated by Ben Wilmore "digitalmastery" to save 15%. If you want to take Ben's highly recommended class, visit xTrain through this link to save 15%.  

BTW, all the above shots were taken handheld. with the Canon EOS 1D Mark III. With it's incredibly fast shutter speed and the ability to very quickly dial in exposure bracketing, it's a great camera for handheld HDR. Which is good for me, because I hate schlepping around a tripod.

Comments

[Joe]

Ummm, I'm trying to figure out what part of this is embarrassing? Those pictures, to me, are what the practical side of HDR is all about -- bringing out the details that would be lost using ordinary methods. I think they are great efforts and more closely resemble what the eye sees. Keep up the great work. I can't believe you can do this handheld. Are you going to be able to turn that camera back to Canon?

[Scott Sherman]

Wow - thanks for the comments, Joe. I've seen so many unbelievable examples of HDR, that I thought my own were kind of weak, but I'm glad you liked them. That was really nice of you to say.

I really don't want to return the Mark III, but if I don't, they'll never send me the Mark IV to play with, will they? Smile.

[sanssoucy]

I think these HDR's work for the simple reason that my first thought - even knowing that they were prototype HDRs - wasn't "Oh, lookee, heavily-Photoshopped HDRs."

To my mind, that's the biggest weakness of 90% of all the HDR images I've seen thus far; they postively *scream* HDR. Phoney, oversaturated colors, insanely flat tonal curves, weird, sculpted edges. Bleagh.

[Randy Girouard]

I like the conversions. Great job Scott. Keep up the good work.

[Mary G]

Scott,

Love your HDR...especially the playground. I am also toying with HDR and took Ben Wilmore's Xtrain course, which was great. Having a good time with it. Keep on shooting, Sport.

[Jen Weaver]

I think you did well for a first time.

It's all about the multiple exposures and the just playing with the slides in photomatrix until you've tweaked them how you like best. The look is up to you and your taste.

I got hooked on HDR back in the fall and I'm in love. If you'd like to take a look I'll include a link to my HDR Gallery to show you some of my work (most are true HDR and some are just 1 RAW file tonemapped in Photomatrix): http://jenweaverphotography.smugmug.com/gallery/3868580_st8qe/1/272716769_r9T4V

Regards!

Jen

[Landya]

Jen:
Those are gorgeous, and if you had not told me they were HDR images, I would not have known. I would have simply thought that they were stunning landscapes, and wondered, as always, why mine do not look like that!

I will confess, I like all style of HDR images. Those like Jen's and I love the over-processed look too. For instance, I love this guy's HDR photo blog: stuckincustoms.com

Scott: I bought Bracketeer because I am too poor to afford Photomatix. I am too poor because I am shelling out money for products you talk about on your podcast. (Just bought DFine 2) I am glad your show is down right now. Maybe today I will have some money to buy a coffee at Starbucks!

[Jen Weaver]

Thanks so much for your comments Landya. I appreciate the compliments!

[Terrie]

I've done plenty of HDRs and mine are much more embarassing than yours. In fact, I'm trying to learn to tone mine down (yes, I'm the one making those screaming HDRs) to appear more realistic... just like yours.

I've taken Ben's xtrain class and it is excellent. Ben really likes to take it to the photo-illustration end of the tonemapping scale but my images fall somewhere between Ben and you.

[Terrie]

Well I thought the URL would appear in the comment. Here are my embarassing HDR images:

http://www.betterphoto.com/gallery/free/gallery.asp?memberID=264982

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