Thanks Jim, yeah you might be right on #3. I was down in the bushes on a steep-ish rocky bank. #2 was way off - but I corrected it in ACR.
These are all multi-exposure tripod shots. #1 = 4 Exposure Tone-Map.
#2 = 6 Exposure Tone-Map.
#3 = 5 Exposure Tone-Map.
#4 = 8 Exposure Tone-Map.
#5 = 4 Exposure Tone-Map.
The black boarders on 1 and 5 were added in ACR to hide the vignetting caused by the polarizer at that wide (24mm) of an angle.
Jim Sanderson wrote:
Cool, I like photomatix type HDR effects. The second one is my favorite....killer shot.
Jim
Thanks Jim. Yeah, I'm using Photomatrix but I'm not doing the crazy-color thing - or at least I'm not trying to. These shots are, on their own, already extremely colorful. I'm mostly just trying to coax out some of the tones and exposure dynamics that my camera isn't capable of on it's own - in a single exposure. I think if I were using a FF-Sensor camera with a nice bright lens I wouldn't be doing this - or at least not as often. I made a little comparison of an image in Autumn In Japan II to show the difference between a single exposure and what I'm accomplishing - or trying to accomplish - with multiple exposures in Photomatrix.
http://tesselator.gpmod.com/Images/_Equipment_n_Tutorials/PICT6538_Stand_Comparrison.jpg
Notice that besides the cloned out branches and the hand colored rocks, most of the differences are in how the darks (shadows and etc.) are brought into view and exposed more as if that were the target of the exposure. The color range is also more dynamic and closer to reality as on-site human eyes would take in over time - while enjoying the scene. I'm not trying to defend the technique or anything - I'm just trying to communicate what I'm going for by incorporating it.
I like the last 3 in the original series....those are nicely done (though I'd crop enough off the right of the 4th to get rid of that clump of whatever in the lower right corner).
In the side by side example, I like the separation of color in the warmer tones in the HDR version. But it also looks like you had a circular graduated neutral density as there's a muddy halo encircling the leaf color. And then there's the sky......way too heavy for my taste. Photomatix can be a good tool and can provide some positive effects, but it also can be a bit of a thuggish tool and overdo things in the same image.
philber wrote:
N∞3 is also my favorite, with N∞1 close behind. Overall, lots of lovely pics on your threads IMHO
Such flattery. I love it.
Thanks Phil!
David Leask wrote:
Beautiful colours and textures! I like them all. Thanks for posting.
David
You're welcome David. Thank you for taking the time to say so!
Fo Tollery wrote:
I like the last 3 in the original series....those are nicely done (though I'd crop enough off the right of the 4th to get rid of that clump of whatever in the lower right corner).
Thanks Fo To. Yeah, I think that's a clump of bamboo babies.
In the side by side example, I like the separation of color in the warmer tones in the HDR version. But it also looks like you had a circular graduated neutral density as there's a muddy halo encircling the leaf color. And then there's the sky......way too heavy for my taste. Photomatix can be a good tool and can provide some positive effects, but it also can be a bit of a thuggish tool and overdo things in the same image.
Excellent advice. I agree as well - although the "halo" (I think) you're talking about is just the happenstance of the cloud coverage over the time it took to snap all 6 images - unless you mean inside the trees and not in the sky area. I think for my next series I'm going to do all Exposure Blends instead of Tone Mappings. Exposure Blending usually produces less "thuggish" results but are a bit more difficult to pull proper hue accuracies from.
Thanks all for the efforts to comment! It's very appreciated!
These shots are, on their own, already extremely colorful. I'm mostly just trying to coax out some of the tones and exposure dynamics that