Author Topic: High Dynamic Range (HDR) Imaging - very cool!  (Read 30583 times)

Offline BLeafe

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Re: High Dynamic Range (HDR) Imaging - very cool!
« Reply #15 on: March 23, 2013, 09:30:26 AM »
Why "finally"? How many attempts...?

All of them!  :laugh:

I wanted a good night image of the building with the neon lights on, but when you expose so that the neon looks good, everything else is way too dark. By the time you adjust to make everything else visible, the neon is blown out.

HDR fixes that IF I shoot at dusk - otherwise, the black contrast of night makes the neon too bright. Dusk calms that contrast down, plus it lets you have a nicer background that shows the sky, trees, and the river.

This "photo" is actually 3 tripoded photos with shutter speeds of 0.3, 1.3, and 6.0 seconds (at f8) and taken from across the street, where I had to avoid any traces of headlights/taillights from moving cars from both directions on River St and coming off Passaic St onto River. Sometimes, there weren't 6 seconds (+ 2 more for the shake-avoiding self-timer) available in the traffic light cycle to do that, so it took a few light cycles to get the necessary 3 exposures for the one image...................and I did 5 different images, for a total of 15 exposures (actually more when a few car lights snuck in that I immediately deleted). This was the best group-of-3 image.

I found an online HDR program that I can just plug the 3 exposures into. It blends the 3 into one image and after that, a little iPhoto twiddling and, voila - a White Manna hamburger....................shot.

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Offline Homer Jones

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Re: High Dynamic Range (HDR) Imaging - very cool!
« Reply #16 on: March 23, 2013, 10:43:58 AM »
A taste of Americana in Hackensack. The photo is like a painting you would have found in Look or Life Magazine 50 years ago.


Offline BLeafe

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Re: High Dynamic Range (HDR) Imaging - very cool!
« Reply #17 on: March 23, 2013, 01:23:55 PM »
Thanks, Homer.

I did a couple of other HDRs in the neighborhood last night that I'll post soon.
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Offline Homer Jones

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Re: High Dynamic Range (HDR) Imaging - very cool!
« Reply #18 on: March 23, 2013, 03:16:07 PM »
The fact that you can make out the faces inside the restaurant sort of reminds me of a Norman Rockwell composition.

Offline Editor

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Re: High Dynamic Range (HDR) Imaging - very cool!
« Reply #19 on: March 23, 2013, 06:31:53 PM »
Or Edward Hopper, but Hopper is more subdued.

Offline BLeafe

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Re: High Dynamic Range (HDR) Imaging - very cool!
« Reply #20 on: March 27, 2013, 02:11:30 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.

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.

Mystery solved. Yep - mundane.

Original and source:


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Offline BLeafe

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Re: High Dynamic Range (HDR) Imaging - SECOND REFORMED CHURCH
« Reply #21 on: March 30, 2013, 10:53:34 PM »
My next-door neighbor, 2Ref (Second Reformed Church):

« Last Edit: March 31, 2013, 01:55:45 PM by BLeafe »
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Offline BLeafe

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Re: High Dynamic Range (HDR) Imaging - THE BERGEN COUNTY COURTHOUSE
« Reply #22 on: April 03, 2013, 03:50:05 PM »
.

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Offline BLeafe

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Re: High Dynamic Range (HDR) Imaging - THE FIRST PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH
« Reply #23 on: April 10, 2013, 01:30:38 PM »
It was much darker outside when I shot this.
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Offline BLeafe

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Re: High Dynamic Range (HDR) Imaging - SUMMIT AVENUE
« Reply #24 on: April 24, 2013, 01:30:21 PM »
When I'm driving on Summit Ave, my eye is always drawn to the contrast of houses with hi-rises right behind them (my other eye is on the road, of course), so I took a walk there (and a bit of Prospect Ave) one recent evening to do some HDR shots of houses, hi-rises, the Jewish temple, the sky, and a section of railroad track I hadn't seen before.

The track shown is the Susquehanna line west of Summit and - while not much to look at as far as HDR is concerned - shows the split that branches off toward Lodi.

I didn't know where that track across Essex St came from................now I do.

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Offline BLeafe

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Re: High Dynamic Range (HDR) Imaging - HOLY TRINITY CHURCH
« Reply #25 on: April 29, 2013, 03:01:06 PM »
(actually, "Holy Trinity Church/School/Convent")


I could have picked a different night with a more interesting sky, so maybe I'll go back and do it again.

1. This is my favorite, though I think the building at 505 Main St behind the church came out more interesting.

2. This is a somewhat duller variation. The good news is that there are fewer wires in the picture. The bad news is that the angle puts a "Do Not Enter" sign near the main entrance.

3. The school is just not that HDR-able, but I think I see one of Editor's old drawings still hanging near a classroom window.

4. The convent is absolutely not an HDR candidate, but I did one anyway when I noticed that every bit of flora on the property had been removed/cut at ground level and shredded (see pile on the right between the convent and 50 Anderson).

I have no idea what that's about.

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Offline Editor

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Re: High Dynamic Range (HDR) Imaging - very cool!
« Reply #26 on: April 29, 2013, 03:38:01 PM »
Would you ever photoshop out the utility wires or is that cheating?

Very nice.
« Last Edit: April 29, 2013, 03:39:43 PM by Editor »

Offline BLeafe

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Re: High Dynamic Range (HDR) Imaging - HOLY TRINITY CHURCH
« Reply #27 on: April 29, 2013, 04:09:51 PM »
I wouldn't consider it cheating. HDR itself could be considered cheating - especially with the photo-editing manipulation that goes into making the images more interesting.

I've used PhotoShop for certain aspects of some images, but to get all traces of the 8 wires out of the first image would be pretty painstaking, time-consuming work for me, considering all the non-solid backgrounds behind them.

It's a lot easier to just bitch about the fact that the wires are there and then mention that their presence is historically accurate for the time period (even if the colors aren't).

You buying any of this?

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Offline BLeafe

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Re: High Dynamic Range (HDR) Imaging - very cool!
« Reply #28 on: April 29, 2013, 04:35:23 PM »
Lots of PhotoFudging going on here:

I used an HDR program to create this, but the 3 exposures aren't different............in fact, they're exactly the same, so there's no real increase in dynamic range. The only variable is that I took the 3 images 10 minutes apart.

The HDR program made 2 of the 3 moons BLACK with orange halos! I have no idea why, but I had to change that. It was important to get that 3rd moon in because that's the one that put moonshine (or a semi-reasonable facsimile of it) on the river.

There were other problems - some of them still pretty evident - so this was pretty much a failed experiment.

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Offline Homer Jones

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Re: High Dynamic Range (HDR) Imaging - very cool!
« Reply #29 on: April 29, 2013, 04:59:00 PM »
The rear of 505 at sundown +/- 30 minutes  might give you some great results just looking at the one Holy Trinity
Photo above.

 

anything