02 January 2009
A few more HDR shots from the same photo walk as the previous ones.
This is the big cinema in Uppsala, Filmstaden. I only needed three bracketed shots to get the dynamic range here, since the sky wasn't that bright above the houses.
And here five shots, taken about two hours after the photo above.
This is Islandsfallet, from which the river is deep enough for boats to sail south to lake Mälaren.
Labels: hdr, photography, photomatix, Uppsala
01 January 2009
It's beginning to feel like I'm repeating myself ... Couldn't resist to take a few more pictures of Kvarnfallet last time I went shooting in Uppsala.
I used my Gorillapod to fasten my camera to the iron fence that runs along the river, keeping the shoulder strap around my neck as extra security. Didn't feel like loosing the camera to the ice-cold water below.
I probably looked weird to the people passing by ... but hey, that's photography.
For this last shot (which really was the first) I used the grey (ND) filter I was given for Christmas. Very useful for this kind of stuff to get nice long exposures.
Labels: hdr, photography, photomatix, Uppsala
04 December 2008
Två HDR-bilder jag tog i helgen på Musikens hus, eller som det egentligen heter, Uppsala Konsert och Kongress.
Labels: hdr, photography, photomatix, Uppsala
26 November 2008
21 November 2008
I was off work today, so I went out at dusk to grab some more HDR photos. I had a few ideas of what to try. They've put up the Christmas lights all over town, so I thought I would see how they looked tonemapped.
I went into town at about two pm, thinking I would be there just before they switch the lights on. (It starts going dark at around 2.30.) It turned out I was a bit early and stood freezing for almost an hour.
While I was waiting I took some shots when the sun went down. The sky was rather dull so I didn't think they would be very interesting. But I'd say they turned out at least as nice as the shots I got with the Christmas lights later on.
When my toes were about to fall off and I couldn't cope with waiting any longer, I went to the paper where I work to get my core temperature back up to normal.
Just as I was about to head off again, they switched the lights on. So I set up my tripod in the middle of the cycle path (why are the best places for tripods always in someone's way?) and got a shot of Nybrogatan.
I also got a few of the main shopping street, Kungsgatan.
I finished off back at Köpmangatan where I started. I tried making them as saturated as the first ones, but that didn't really look good. So I went with fairly muted colours instead.
Labels: hdr, photography, photomatix
18 November 2008
During the weekend I got my hands on Photomatix and have started experimenting with it.
For those who didn't know, Photomatix is software for combining over- and underexposed shots into artistic-looking HDR images.
In the Flickr community, there seem to be basically two camps. Those who love Photomatix and those who hate it. I've always been somewhere in between.
The program allows you to create really eye-catching images, but they will look nothing like real life. If you just accept this fact and see these overcooked
HDR images as an artform slightly beyond photography, then you can have loads of fun making them, as I've now discovered.
Also in defense of Photomatix (not that it needs it) is the fact that far from all photos treated in Photoshop look real either.
Yesterday I went into town just before sundown with my tripod to see if there was anything worth pointing the camera at. The photos above and below are a couple I came away with.
I'm slowly beginning to learn what all the sliders in Photomatix do. There are a few more than I had reckoned and they don't all do what you expect them to. The key ones seem to be strength (obviously), luminosity and light smoothing as well as the tone settings (gamma, white point and black point).
Seeing how much fun it is to make these images, you'll no doubt see more here in the future...
Labels: Eskilstuna, hdr, photography, photomatix
06 October 2008
Just playing around really, hardly very interesting shots. But this is definitely a good use for HDR, shooting out through windows.
And the regular exposure:
And again, the medium exposure original:
I did these the cheating
way with only three exposures, -2, 0 and +2. By using the camera in high speed drive this is quite good for when you don't have a tripod around. You still need something to hold your camera against though.
Labels: Eskilstuna, hdr, photography
02 October 2008
Today I sat down and went about creating HDR images out of the multiple exposures I took on my last photo excursion. It was pretty tricky getting the settings right in Photoshop and it took a couple of hours of experimenting before I felt the output was what I wanted.
(If you just want the photos, scroll down.)
The main problem seems to be that when you press a large tonal range into 8 (24) bits of colour you easily end up with a very dull looking photo.
The fix for this dullness is using curves and local adaptation
when converting from 32-bit to 8-bit. But, with endless possible combinations of settings it takes a while to find something that looks good and realistic.
I finally ended up with these settings:
I also adjust the curve to only just clip the information in the 32-bit image:
Those settings give me this:
And for comparison, the original (metered exposure):
I have put the best shots in a Flickr set.
While making the HDR images I realized that I didn't take dark enough exposures to retain all the detail in the brightest highlights. I used the cameras auto-bracketing feature and did -2, 0 and +2 exposures, except for the last shot I took where I manually did -4 EV to +3 EV at 1 step intervals.
And it is only in that last shot that I can get all the detail around the sun.
So if you're including the sun or a bright sky, you should probably go at least four stops below the metered exposure, and four above. If you follow Denny Tangs advice here that means that a series of -4, -2, 0, +2 and +4 should do the trick if you're using an SLR.
If you use Photoshop for merging into HDR I'd love to hear what settings you tend to use.
Edit: Since posting I have decided to also add a very slight S-curve for slightly more contrast. The photos on Flickr have been updated.
Labels: Eskilstuna, hdr, photography, photoshop
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