I am curious as to how many stops you are using to capture more dynamic range for a HDR image? I have read that some are using in some cases +4 to -4 in 1 stop increments depending on the scene. I would appreciate any suggestions on the setup you are using in the field and what has worked best for you. Thanks.

I've been getting best results using between 1 and 2 stops depending and three images. I haven't had much luck with bracketing less than one stop exposures (that could be user error though) and -2,+2 is the max my cameras will allow.

That's a terrific shot bill. Great example of a good blend. Thanks for sharing.

AJ

You could write a book on this subject. In most cases the pictures I see are not good at all. Most are washed out and have halos, artifacts etc.

Most just dont look natural. The best hdrs are not detectable.

Tim farrar has the best Ive seen.

http://www.farrarfocus.com/photography/index.htm
He also sells a tool for blending raws.

	http://www.farrarfocus.com/m/20060318-017K.jpg">

Thanks Michael.

For those doing HDR regardless of technique (Adobe, Photomatix, FFDD, etc), I have an article which shows exactly what you want to get from your bracketed exposures to insure a high quality dynamic range image. The article shows the fstop, timing, undeveloped shot and histograms for a full sequence of 6 shots. In the end you will know exactly what you need to take from your darkest shot to your brightest shot in the series of exposures, and it will show in the quality of your images!

http://www.farrarfocus.com/ffdd/shooting.htm

Here is a clip of one of the exposures and histograms from the article (the image shows an undeveloped raw negative),



The top histogram is in the camera's colorspace, and the bottom histogram is from what you would see in Photoshop... read the article for more info.

This thread caught my attention, specially because all the HDR blends that I have seen look unreal and the ones shown here look great, so I have a few questions:

How different is to make a HDR blend using PS CS2 against using FFDD?
What are the advantages of using FFDD besides noise reduction and sharpening?
Does FFDD work with PS CS2 for PC or is it just for MAC? or is it a stand-alone software??
How good or bad is to use the same RAW image, just adjusting the exposure and saving it into 3 or 4 different files??

thanks

Loco

Listening along

i bracketed like every 2/3 stops for like 10 photos.... i ended up using 3 exposures that where very far apart. it works alot better than bracketing way close together....

a little clarification: i ment to say that my bracketing so close ended up being useless as using all the images to make the HDR was horrendous and produced a nasty image......

killersnowman wrote:
i bracketed like every 2/3 stops for like 10 photos.... i ended up using 3 exposures that where very far apart. it works alot better than bracketing way close together....

a little clarification: i ment to say that my bracketing so close ended up being useless as using all the images to make the HDR was horrendous and produced a nasty image......

Very nice image. Are you doing this using PS2 or some other software? If you are shooting 10 different exposures and using 3, generally how far apart are the exposures that you end up using? I assume you are ending up with one at around -4 and another around +4.

locoalvarez38 wrote:
This thread caught my attention, specially because all the HDR blends that I have seen look unreal and the ones shown here look great, so I have a few questions:

How different is to make a HDR blend using PS CS2 against using FFDD?
What are the advantages of using FFDD besides noise reduction and sharpening?
Does FFDD work with PS CS2 for PC or is it just for MAC? or is it a stand-alone software??
How good or bad is to use the same RAW image, just adjusting the exposure and saving it into 3 or 4 different files??

thanks

Loco


no coments on this??

Here is an HDR merge from 3 bracketed shots +/-2 then converted into 7 images .5EV apart. I used PS CS2 HDR Merge.

Al

How different is to make a HDR blend using PS CS2 against using FFDD?
What are the advantages of using FFDD besides noise reduction and sharpening?
Does FFDD work with PS CS2 for PC or is it just for MAC? or is it a stand-alone software??
How good or bad is to use the same RAW image, just adjusting the exposure and saving it into 3 or 4 different files??


Sorry for not getting back to this thread earlier! Here are some answers to your questions,

1. FFDD HDR blend is better than PS CS2 HDR blend in cases where you have motion between frames. FFDD also allows you to tweek the HDR blend when it is done so that if you wanted to you can exclude areas from individual exposures from being included in the final HDR output.


2. Some other FFDD Advantages:

NO HDR artifacts (ie, glow, halo, graying effect, etc) : FFDD includes methods to develop an HDR image naturally similar to how you would develop a 11 stop extended latitude (high dynamic range) film negative in a chemical darkroom (single digital exposure has a little over 5 stops of dynamic range for comparison).

Batch processing : Ability to do all the HDR blending for many photographs over night.

Zone Display Tool : Highlights a tonal zone in the image to aid in development.

Enlargment : Tools to upres with a 2x enlargement that looks sharper and more detailed than the orgional unsharpened raw file.

Feel free to download the examples and see with your own eyes,

http://www.farrarfocus.com/ffdd/examples.htm


3. FFDD works on both the PC and Mac version of PS CS2.

4. Simply re-using a single digital negative, changing the exposure, and then blending, will do nothing for the quality of an image. All the noise in this one digital negative will show up in the final image.

However, developing a single exposure as you would an extended dynamic range image (with graduated adjustments to brightness and contrast to properly expose the light and dark areas of a photograph) will also produce a good image, but just with a lot more noise than starting with a blended negative.

Here is an example of one shot converted into 3 different exposures and then blended with PS CS2 HDR merge. Not much noise and good control of shadow and highlight detail even in a harsh mid-day sun.

Al

What exactly is HDR and FFDD?

amgolds, that picture is absolutely wonderful.

Wow !