HDR photography

[rich p]

This photo was taken by HDR, apparently, (not by me!)

What and how?

 

[Sam Kennedy]

I was trying to find out what this type of photography was called last year, but no one knew, and I forgot its name!

HDR stands for High Dynamic Range. I had a skim through wikipedia, and basically what they do is take a series of photos at different stops.
For example f4, f5.6, f8, f12
They are then blended together to give a higher range of light/dark and colour.

Either that or I'm completely wrong.
I'll give it a go and see what I get.

 

[Tollers]

I was trying to find out what this type of photography was called last year, but no one knew, and I forgot its name!

HDR stands for High Dynamic Range. I had a skim through wikipedia, and basically what they do is take a series of photos at different stops.
For example f4, f5.6, f8, f12
They are then blended together to give a higher range of light/dark and colour.

Either that or I'm completely wrong.
I'll give it a go and see what I get.

You're kind of right. The aperture doesnt matter, the exposure is the key thing. As changing aperture can affect depth of field, i'd use different shutter speeds to control this, depending on light and subject matter.

Basically you put your camera on the tripod and take 3-9 photos at varying levels of exposure, so some individual photos seem to bright, some too dark. You then use a peice of software such a photoshop or photomatix to "blend" the photos into a single result with a high dynamic range creating an image with a sense of dynamism and "kapow".

To do this, you need a DSLR camera.

Does that make sense?

Tollers

 

[gaz]

sam got it pretty right, using a tripod you take a series of images that are of exactly the same shot, just different aperture's and/or exposure. then using software you stitch them together.

Edit: got beaten to it.

 

[brockers]

That's more or less it. You take the same shot with different exposures (called exposure bracketing, or AEB) for which you'll need a tripod. And then you combine them all in Photoshop through converting from 16 bit to 32 bit or something. The next bit though, and to give it the dream-like quality is something called 'tone-mapping', and can't remember whether Photoshop does this. There's another app/program called Photomatix that I think does the whole lot as well. (There are one or two brilliant online tutorials on HDR if you have a good old dig, and some of the example pictures are amazing too).

I think HDR is pretty passe now, though. From what I'm picking up, everybody and their dog seems to have moved on to a technique known as 'tilt-shift', where you play around with the focal-plane/ DOF to give a toy-town look to landscapes.

 

[Sam Kennedy]

I've got my photos, I used f3.5, and varied the shutter from 1.3 seconds to 8 seconds.
Now I just need to acquire photoshop cs2 to get the "kapow" look.

 

[Tollers]

I've got my photos, I used f3.5, and varied the shutter from 1.3 seconds to 8 seconds.
Now I just need to acquire photoshop cs2 to get the "kapow" look.

Try the Photomatix trial, although I believe they have put limitations on the trial version.

http://www.hdrsoft.com/download.html

 

[Davidc]

I have a camera which takes the sets of pix for HDR, and use Photomatix to combine them. The results are interesting, sometimes good. Anything which moves during the process of taking the pictures produces ghostly effects.

Agree with Tollers - if you want to try it use the Photomatix trial.

 

[Crankarm]

It's not a new technique. This sort of image manipulation used to be done in dark rooms by placing negatives with correct exposure for certain areas of the image on top of each other just like Photoshop or Photomax does then blends the various layers to make the final image. Digital photography has made the process of layering and masking, dodging and burning so much easier to create "ideal" images that approximate more to what the eye can resolve. Digital photography is poor at handling contrast even more so than film was hence the need for Photoshop.

The image in the OP has been Photoshopped or Photomaxed.

 

[Crankarm]

I have a camera which takes the sets of pix for HDR, and use Photomatix to combine them. The results are interesting, sometimes good. Anything which moves during the process of taking the pictures produces ghostly effects.

Agree with Tollers - if you want to try it use the Photomatix trial.

This would be because of a slow shutter speed, yes?

 

[Crackle]

Funny how these things go from being all the rage to passe so quickly. Doesn't seem all that long ago I was reading about HDR as the answer to digitals low dynamic range.

Photography used to be a hobby of mine but I've given up keeping up now, plus it seems even more investment driven than it used to be and the investment lasts less time.

 

[Norm]

Digital photography is poor at handling contrast even more so than film was hence the need for Photoshop.

This is true. Whilst it was done in the days of film, print film can capture a much broader range than slide film, and slide film can capture a much broader range than sensors can at the moment. HDR originally became popular to fill the over- / under-exposed gaps in standard digital photos but, by pushing the process like that image in rich p's OP, it has become a stand-alone technique.

This would be because of a slow shutter speed, yes?

No, that would be because things moved between images.

 

[Davidc]

This would be because of a slow shutter speed, yes?

No, it's more basic!

The camera takes 3 pictures, in the right order (I think its darkest first) and the software then combines the images.

If theres something in one which isn't in the others you end up with a combination of the something and the absence of it. It's analogous to multiple exposure with conventional silver nitrate film, but for pictures of spooks it's even better because of the tricks the software does.

I took some interior pictures a while back where there were 3 TV monitors going occupying about 1/3 of the field of view, and fortunately checked the results before leaving. Weird doesn't describe it adequately.

 

[rich p]

It's fakery then! No skill required?

 

[Tollers]

It's fakery then! No skill required?

Used badly it looks crap. You still need to be a good photographer to do good HDR. It's just a tool to help achieve a different effect. In the wrong/untalented/tasteles hands you, you end up with ....