Author Topic: High Dynamic Range (HDR) Imaging - very cool!  (Read 30578 times)

Offline BLeafe

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High Dynamic Range (HDR) Imaging - very cool!
« on: February 07, 2013, 01:23:10 AM »
I've been noticing HRD images lately, so I wanted to try it.

HDR is a range of methods to provide higher dynamic range from the imaging process. Non-HDR cameras take pictures at one exposure level with a limited contrast range. This results in the loss of detail in bright or dark areas of a picture, depending on whether the camera had a low or high exposure setting. HDR compensates for this loss of detail by taking multiple pictures at different exposure levels and intelligently stitching them together to produce a picture that is representative in both dark and bright areas.

Many of the more interesting HDR images are computer renderings that make them appear more like paintings than photographs. I'm just taking my first baby steps with this, so I'll stick to having the images look like photographs.

I don't own an HDR camera, but I don't need to. All I have to do is take 3 pictures of something and download an HDR program that will essentially take an normal exposure and put a too-dark one and a too-bright one on top of it. You MUST use a tripod so that the framing is identical throughout.

For my first attempts, I shot a normal exposure and then underexposed one image by 2 stops and overexposed another by the same amount. A program sandwiched them and the results were pretty interesting.

First, I tried it out with on Kipps Bend. The first picture is the normal, unmanipulated exposure. You might think that a too-bright image and a too-dark image might cancel each other out, but they don't.

If you look at the big chimney in the lower right of the second image, there is now good detail on the side that's very dark in the first, but the high-rises on the horizon are darker and more detailed than the first image, while the water looks the same in both.

Another HDR image - done at night - was much more striking. The scene is a bit to the left of the daylight image (Harley's is in both), but SO much more is revealed in the HDR image.

I think I'm gonna have fun exploring HDR.

(click to enlarge)


« Last Edit: February 07, 2013, 03:15:07 PM by BLeafe »


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Offline BLeafe

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Re: High Dynamic Range (HDR) Imaging - very cool!
« Reply #1 on: February 15, 2013, 04:30:29 PM »
So I've been experimenting with HDR to see what works and what doesn't. When something comes out interesting, I'll post it here.

I took this yesterday. As usual, click to enlarge:


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Offline Editor

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Re: High Dynamic Range (HDR) Imaging - very cool!
« Reply #2 on: February 15, 2013, 08:25:23 PM »
Nice hues.  Where were you?

Offline BLeafe

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Re: High Dynamic Range (HDR) Imaging - very cool!
« Reply #3 on: February 15, 2013, 09:28:38 PM »
Home.

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Offline BLeafe

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Re: High Dynamic Range (HDR) Imaging - very cool!
« Reply #4 on: March 02, 2013, 08:42:29 PM »
Here are 3 more.

Usually, these are done with a minimum of 3 exposures for each image, but one exposure in each one didn't line up properly, so only 2 were used.

Considering that a third of the information was missing, they still come out kind of interesting.

(click to enlarge)

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Offline BLeafe

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Re: High Dynamic Range (HDR) Imaging - very cool!
« Reply #5 on: March 05, 2013, 09:00:17 PM »
Kipp's Bend - a half-hour before sunrise today:


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Re: High Dynamic Range (HDR) Imaging - very cool!
« Reply #6 on: March 05, 2013, 09:21:07 PM »
I really like these. So is it possible to do a panoramic HDR image?

Offline BLeafe

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Re: High Dynamic Range (HDR) Imaging - very cool!
« Reply #7 on: March 05, 2013, 10:48:43 PM »
Sure......and there's 3 times as many chances to screw it up.

If ONE image in one set of 3 exposures doesn't line up perfectly, you have to go with 2 exposures and that will produce an image in the stitch whose exposure will look different from the others, rendering the whole thing useless.

But it's a good challenge with 3 times the satisfaction if all goes right.



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Offline BLeafe

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Re: High Dynamic Range (HDR) Imaging - very cool!
« Reply #8 on: March 10, 2013, 07:27:25 PM »
After Friday's snow, there was a pretty colorful sunset. Normally, I'd post shots that would show an interesting sky and a very dark or black foreground. HDR brings out the foreground, which I wanted to show the snow.

Unfortunately, HDR exacerbates the blue cast cameras usually give snow. Fortunately, PhotoShop exists to fix that.

Because my roof was a slippery, slushy mess, I stayed inside, but held my roof door open with one foot while two legs of the tripod were in the snow and its other leg was in my apartment.

It probably looked funny, but it worked.

Click to enlarge.


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Re: High Dynamic Range (HDR) Imaging - very cool!
« Reply #9 on: March 10, 2013, 07:40:00 PM »
The first one looks apocalyptic, - like a mushroom cloud in the distance. Paterson maybe. 

Offline BLeafe

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Re: High Dynamic Range (HDR) Imaging - very cool!
« Reply #10 on: March 14, 2013, 11:20:23 PM »
Despite the high wind on the roof this evening, I got the first 3-shot image, but it was just too brutal tonight. The tripod almost blew over and all 3 shots were blurry on my next attempt, so I took the second composite from indoors.


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Offline BLeafe

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Re: High Dynamic Range (HDR) Imaging - very cool!
« Reply #11 on: March 16, 2013, 08:38:29 PM »
Today's High Dynamic flurries

I don't know why the arrows are orange - they use the same yellow paint for those as they do for the lines and numbers.


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Offline BLeafe

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Re: High Dynamic Range (HDR) Imaging - very cool!
« Reply #12 on: March 19, 2013, 08:07:39 PM »
I was looking out of my window that faces the First Presbyterian Church's steeple while snow was falling last night. To the left of the steeple, I could see something glowing red, so I HDR'd it.

In the picture, the church roof at the bottom has orange snow and Passaic St's is yellow (don't eat the yellow snow).

I asked Rev. Steve what the red might be, but he wasn't sure. I took a look just now and it's a light of some sort on the front property, but I'd rather not go out and find out that it's some mundane thing when the mystery is much more interesting.


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Offline BLeafe

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Re: High Dynamic Range (HDR) Imaging - WHITE MANNA
« Reply #13 on: March 23, 2013, 01:35:17 AM »
Finally!


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Re: High Dynamic Range (HDR) Imaging - very cool!
« Reply #14 on: March 23, 2013, 02:15:16 AM »
Looks like a classic painting. Why "finally"? How many attempts before this perfect shot?

 

anything