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What: Hulopoe Bay (map)

Where: From the fabulous grounds of the Four Seasons at Manele Bay, Lanai.

How: This HDR was captured by using the exposure bracketing option on the Nikon D7000. Effectively, you take one shot at normal exposure, then one at +1 and one at -1. The +1 helps to capture the shadows, rocks, trees. The -1 helps to prevent the clouds and beach from being blown out.

Next blend using your favorite HDR processing software. I use Photomatix as a plugin to Apple’s Aperture 3 software. Bake for 2 hours minutes, and serve!

Happy Holidays! Mmmm, smell that cinnamon and pine.

My first attempts at an HDR shot using studio lighting. I used a 4-shot bracket (+/- 10 units – approx. 20-50) to create an HDR image.

Photographed with a Canon EOS 5D and Canon EF 100mm f/2.8 USM Macro Lens. Exposure of ISO 500, f/13.0 for 1/60 with varying strengths of light output. Lit with a single soft box on 300 W/S monolight and a white semi-circular reflector.

Processed in Photomatix Pro 3.2 with post-processing in Adobe Lightroom 2.5 and Photoshop CS3.

View Gary Stafford’s Flickr Photostream

One morning in November, I looked out the window to see what promised to be a gorgeous sunrise. Fortunately, my Nikkor 14-24mm lens was already on my camera, a Nikon D700, so all I had to do was grab the tripod and run out the door. I set up just behind the house and saw the bright clouds reflected in the windows of the house, giving a warm golden glow to the stone work.

One of the primary requirements for good HDR (High Dynamic Range) images is a tripod. Even if the normal exposure could be hand held, you still need to be sure that every image in the bracketed series will line up perfectly. Photomatix Pro, the software I use to process HDR images, can do a decent job of lining up images, but the result is often less than desirable if a tripod was not used – resulting in what appear to be out of focus images.

Other important considerations are:

* aperture priority (to have a consistent depth of field),
* auto-ISO off (set the lowest ISO possible to reduce noise in the images),
* and manual focus (to make sure the focal point doesn’t change from one image to the next).
* Some also recommend setting the white balance to something other than Auto. I always shoot in RAW, and this has not been an issue. If it were, the white balance of RAW images can always be changed with software.

So, I shot 7 bracketed images with 1EV spacing between each one, at an aperture of f/5.6 and the lens at 14mm.

After importing the images into Adobe Lightroom, I immediately exported them to Photomatix Pro. Photomatix default settings usually provide a very good starting point but optimum results will normally require tweaking some of the settings. In this case, I left the strength at 100%, but reduced the Luminosity slightly because the default setting was too bright.

Next, I increased the Smoothing setting slightly to get rid of the halo around the house – this is sometimes introduced by HDR processing and can add impact to some images but often results in an unnatural looking effect.

Finally, I reduced the Micro-smoothing to zero to retain texture in the clouds and stone work on the house and then saved the image back in to Lightroom for some minor tweaks.

The highlights were still a little too bright so I used Lightroom’s Highlight Recovery slider to reduce those slightly. I almost always add some Contrast and Clarity – it seems to add a bit of a sharpening effect. Then I normally increase the Vibrance, especially if there is some blue sky, to deepen and darken that sky. Finally, I’ll sharpen slightly and and do some noise reduction to make sure the image is as smooth and noise free as possible.

Producing HDR images is a lot of fun and can give some added dimension to your portfolio – so give it a try!

View Thru Mike’s Viewfinder Flickr Photostream

Waiting to pick up Chinese food tonight so I ran across the street to this place and shot a photo. I was in this shop a couple of months ago and all I can think about is that movie Grumpy Old Men. The guys that work here are actually really nice but it just reminds me of the 50’s or something. Anyway, back to the weekend!

Where
Bennington, VT

The Shot
Nikon D90, Sigma 10-20mm, bracket 3 exp (-2,0,+2) using a tripod

Photomatix
Generated HDR using Photomatix, tonemapped with Details Enhancer

Photoshop CS3
Layer mask of curves to slightly increase the contrast
Layer mask of decrease saturation (reds) to reduce the tone of the sign
Layer mask of levels to correct the overall shot
Blended some areas to correct the red color cast
Dup layer to apply high pass filter @ 60% to sharpen things up a bit

Noise Reduction
Neat Image Trial Version

You
I would always appreciate any suggestions you may have. I don’t always know the best way to adjust things in Photoshop so any areas of improvement are welcomed.

View Eric Wood’s Flickr Photostream

Camera: Nikon D300
Exposure: 0.002 sec (1/641)
Aperture: f/6.3
Focal Length: 10 mm
ISO Speed: 200

How
3 exposures, -2, 0, and +2 using a Nikon D300 w/ Sigma 10-20mm Wide Angle

Process
Photomatix Pro for tonemapping
Photoshop CS4, made duplicate layer from original, adjusted Levels, adjusted Curves, adjusted Hue/Saturation, and used Unsharp Mask to sharpen a tad.

View Nimo’s Flickr Photostream

Camera: Canon Digital IXUS 960 IS
Exposure: 0.3
Aperture: f/2.8
Focal Length: 7.7 mm
ISO Speed: 80
Exposure Bias: 0 EV
Flash: Off, Did not fire

Another first for me: HDR!

I combined 3 images in Photomatix Pro 3.2 for this but only did some very mild tone mapping. I got to the windmill sort of late (whoops!) so each photo was taken when it was almost dark – hence the slightly grainy sky which ive managed to even out a bit with Noiseware.

Considering the boringness of the images straight out of the camera, this one has had quite a lot of post-processing, mostly in Paint Shop Pro X2. The original colour of the sky was utterly terrible but i managed to enhance the moon, change the sky colour and make the clouds stand out a bit more. I’m not too happy with the grass in the foreground but this could be to do with the fact that i had to use my little travel tripod to take the shots. It only extends to about 20cm above ground level but for now, i have to make do with what little equipment I have

My “automatic” point and shoot decided to photograph this at f2.8 so its not as detailed as it should be. I’ll definately be visiting again when i get my SLR before Christmas

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By Gary A. Stafford

Camera: Canon EOS 5D
Exposure: 1/320 second
Aperture: f/4.5
Focal Length: 100 mm
ISO Speed: 125

Bright amber-colored morning sunlight, illuminating frost-covered leaves in Corbett’s Glen Nature Park, late Fall.

HDR image using a 3-shot bracket in Photomatix Pro 3.2. Photographed with Canon EOS 5D and Canon EF 100mm f/2.8 Macro USM Lens from tripod. Exposure of f/4.5 for 1/320 second, +/- 1 2/3 EV, at ISO 125. Processed in Adobe Lightroom 2.5, with post-processing in Photomatix Pro 3.2 and Adobe Photoshop CS3.

Using HDR really helped me hold detail in the highlight and the quarter-tones, while not loosing the mid- and three-quarter tones. I also like bokah, which is enhanced by both the slight movement of objects in the background and by combining the three shots in Photomatix.

View Gary A. Stafford’s Flickr Photostream

Camera: Nikon D80
Aperture: f/4.0
Focal Length: 20 mm
Flash: No Flash
ISO: 100

How I got this shot.

First, it was handheld. Ideally, you’d want to use a tripod for any kind of high dynamic range (HDR) photograph–any camera shake usually results in a misalignment of the images.

Next, I set up the bracketing on my Nikon D80 so that it would take three shots in rapid succession. One would be exposed normally, one over-exposed (by 2 f stops) and the other underexposed. These three shots would help me capture the detail across the dark areas and the lighter areas.

Note: I used RAW not JPEG, as this gives you greater control during your post-processing.

So, now I have my three files, I use Apple’s Aperture and a plugin called Hydra HDR. This plugin not only automatically aligns my 3 images–great, because I didn’t use a tripod–but also combines the three images. This combining renders an image that has details in both the dark and light areas of the scene.

I made some minor adjustments to the saturation and sharpness, then saved the final image.

Easy as that!