Hello,

I'm starting to experiment with HDR, here is my very first attempt.
I took 3 raw exposures (0, +1, -1), converted to 16-bit TIFF with Aperture, and merged/tone mapped with Photomatix.
What do you think about the result?

what compelled you to do this in HDR? i don't see anything in here that you couldn't do by combining 1 for foreground and 1 for sky. not sure what the HDR about it is....

what bothers me is that there is no point of focus in the image. i those animals were much closer, perhaps...

yeah, and really no need for HDR either

Well, c'mon guys. He did say he was experimenting.

As far as the shot goes, looks like a great, even exposure. You might get more jazzed about HDR if, like the others have said, you shot something that actually needed HDR.

Scott

* Not digging the photo itself. Seems SLIGHTLY underexposed.
* I *DO* like how the HDR was not done in the stereotypical surreal looking HDR technique. Looks more natural than most HDR tries.

Hope this helps.

Thank you for your comments!

I don't think I could achieve the same results using one exposure for the sky and another for the rest.
Yes, the dynamic range of the image is not huge, and that's why there is just a difference of 1 stop between the 3 source images.

I was trying to give a natural feel to the image, to actually reproduce what my eye was seeing there... I'm not interested in the fable-like HDR.

For the composition: yes, I know I missed something in this image. Probably something in the foreground would have helped.

Frankly IMO for an HDR it works for the very reason you said, it doesn't look like the too often seen surreal HDR images.

While not a spectacular scene, you have done an excellent job of capturing the harsh vastness of Point Reyes. I used to mountain bike and hike there a lot. It is an oddly dreary and simultaneously refreshing place on cloudy fall days. Regardless of what technique you chose, I think you accomplished your goal of trying to recreate the image as your eye would see it. As for the composition and not having a foreground focal point, perhaps. But if your goal is to convey the feeling of that place, I don't think focusing on something nearby would attain the proper feeling of emptiness.

Thank you halie!
Ten minutes before I took this shot, it was completely sunny. Five minutes after you couldn't see farther than 10 feet for the thick fog.
So I've tried to capture the scene, even if I wasn't in the most scenic spot.

Sunny Sra wrote:
what compelled you to do this in HDR? i don't see anything in here that you couldn't do by combining 1 for foreground and 1 for sky. not sure what the HDR about it is....

Not every HDR is "tonal mapped". I use HDR to increase the Dynamic Range of images.