Taj Mahal in HDR

[ksz]

Not really. It was about whether one paints what one sees or what one knows to be true. It was thought that what was previously painted was not only what is seen but what was true. It is about what is *seen* which is definitely about light, is it not?

But my point is that star trails, IR imaging, black-and-white, and sepia tones are also *not* what is seen and hence not what is known to be true. We stylize photographs all the time.

Back on topic though, I prefer to do two exposures and manually blend in photoshop.

As I try different permutations of the 5 images I find that:

(a) Daylight images are better with 2 shots. One normal and the other -1 EV.
(b) Sunset images are better with at least 3 shots and best with 4 or 5. If limited to three, the ones to choose would be 0 EV, -0.7 EV, and -1.0 EV. I would also try up to -2.0 EV.
(c) The resulting HDR image is much better if the normal shot (0 EV) is pre-processed for enhanced contrast. It's better not to touch the contrast of the under- and over-exposed images because highlight and shadow detail are going to come from there.

 

[zync]

I see HDR images more for their archival quality; the ability to capture reality more faithfully than what we've been accustomed to. HDR is great for still life, but to capture action, we'll need to develop cameras that can take multiple extremes in exposures in a single shot. That is definitely the future.

What we're talking about in here is tone-mapping -- method for compressing 32-bits of information into 8-bits for display. Photomatix is the best software I've used to create these types of photographs.

Just to be clear: all photography is essentially tone mapping. Also, dynamic range hasn't changed much in the last 80+ years of photography, so good luck with that. The range the eye can see is amazing (however it's huge dynamic range is the ability to process different 'exposures' simultaneously). I hope that they'll be able to come out with better sensors, but I don't think it's going to happen any time soon.

 

[zync]

Sort of like the dilema painters found themselves in when photography revealed that horses did not lift all four legs off the ground when galloping? To paint how it looks or how it *is*.

BTW, you have that backwards. All four hooves DO leave the ground at a point when a horse is in a full gallop. They never figured the horse left the ground. If you look at any paintings of horses running before this (and I believe even after) they never painted horses off the ground completely.

It was a test photographed by Eadweard Muybridge, who did plenty of animal and human locomotion studies.

 

[dogbone]

@zync,

Of course you are correct, my bad.

But my point is that star trails, IR imaging, black-and-white, and sepia tones are also *not* what is seen and hence not what is known to be true. We stylize photographs all the time.

Well I suppose nothing is really *seen* the whole world that we confront is merely an image on our retina. Everything we see is in the past. Photons come to us we don't actually see anything.

Nevertheless hdr is an attempt to represent what we appear to behold rather than sylisation. But the HDR that we can perceive is partly real and partly illusory. In the same way that we appear to see a great deal in focus at once but in reality we only see a very small circle of focus.

To be clear, are you looking for hdr to stylise photos or to reflect what we perceive or remember in a scene, more accurately.

 

[zync]

@zync,

Of course you are correct, my bad.

Well I suppose nothing is really *seen* the whole world that we confront is merely an image on our retina. Everything we see is in the past. Photons come to us we don't actually see anything.

Nevertheless hdr is an attempt to represent what we appear to behold rather than sylisation. But the HDR that we can perceive is partly real and partly illusory. In the same way that we appear to see a great deal in focus at once but in reality we only see a very small circle of focus.

To be clear, are you looking for hdr to stylise photos or to reflect what we perceive or remember in a scene, more accurately.

I just wanted to clarify Also, the eye is an amazing thing, isn't it?

 

[dogbone]

I just checked out the software and after a very quick and dirty test I will have to retract my previous comments about prefering two exposures in photoshop.

Here is the result of three quick shots, bringing them into Photomatrix and pressing two buttons without even checking out any of the options. I'm impressed.

 

[ksz]

To be clear, are you looking for hdr to stylise photos or to reflect what we perceive or remember in a scene, more accurately.

Good question. Glad you asked it in a direct manner without beating around the bush. My current answer is as follows:

Because this is my first experience with HDR I am mostly seeing what it can do. Nevertheless, I would like HDR to capture a scene that more closely resembles what the eye remembers seeing. We see not only a higher dynamic range, but also more brilliant colors than the ones that often come out on film or in a digital exposure. Sunsets are hard to capture, the golden highlights of a morning or evening sun are also hard to capture. Shadow detail in combination with highlight detail is hard to capture. In each of these cases HDR provides a solution--not the only solution possible, but a solution. I think the only problem is the possibility for hyper saturation of the colors, but this can be easily corrected. I really don't see any fundamental problem with HDR or Tone Mapping.