HDR with a D70 - final image.

<p>Hi, I have a dinosaur D70 cos I do low ISO tripod work. I have doing a bit of HDR and I like it for night cityscapes that contains a lot of roads or buildings. </p>

<p>I know that HDR softens the image. In your experience how significant is this compared to say a single non HDR shot?</p>

<p>PS, I have some slide film that I need to finish, they are in my freezer like 20 rolls, will need to wait till I complete the current roll and see how they turn out. Is slide film still suitable for evening cityscapes? Is the dynamic range too narrow? I can see how slide film is still ok for landscapes without much roads or buildings thou ... One cannot use a grad filter for such shots either.</p>

<p>Cheers.</p>

 

<p>HDR doesn't necessarily soften details. Shot to shot alignment is critical. Use a sturdy tripod, use a remote if possible to minimize even slight movement of the camera between shots.</p>

<p>Color slide film works fine for nighttime photography. Long exposures can be tricky due to reciprocity characteristics. You can either study the reciprocity data provided by the film manufacturer, or just wing it and bracket heavily. Some slide films are better than others at retaining reasonable color accuracy with long exposures and under artificial light. I preferred Provia 100 for this. Sensia was a good alternative but tended toward more radical color shifts with long exposures.</p>

<p>There's no reason why you can't use a graduated density filter, neutral or color, for film at night, or for digital if you'd rather not bother with HDR software. Occasionally the transitions will be obvious but not always - it just depends on the subject matter.</p>

<p>There are other strategies. Tone mapping with a program such as Artizen HDR on a single image is one option, also blending two different exposures (done on a tripod) in layers in ps works well. I have also done this with a single raw image making two images, one favoring the highlights and one the shadow detail. I have not found any of these techniques to soften the final image. </p>

<p>If it was a one shot by itself the colors don't pop out. HDR tone mapping makes them pop. If I took a shot of the city's skyline, the buildings are like in a shadow, colors a bit muted, they don't look as good as a HDR image. Which I thought, maybe slide film isn't up to it given my taste. </p>

<p>With HDR the clouds move so that's a blur. Maybe my mind but I find that it is pretty sharp but not as sharp as a single file? Also the street lights, I find that the centre of the light bulbs get a white overexposed dot in them ...</p>

<p>There is nothing inherent in HDR that would detract from sharpness. If you take care in doing the exposures, you can expect some increase in definition because you are supersampling the edge transitions. Have you tried Photomatix using the detail enhancing tonemap settings? </p>

<p>If you are getting white overexposed dots at the center of light bulbs, it is probably because of one of three things: (i) the light bulb is overexposed in every shot, (ii) sensor blooming artifacts around the highlights are making an entire region look clipped (and the D70's CCD is somewhat susceptible to this), or (iii) the "white point" settings in tonemapping are too low to include the brightest highlight (the bulb).</p>

<p>Ray, there are numerous software programs that will give you the effects you are looking for with a single image. Steve lists one. Topaz and Photomatrix also offer excellent programs. These are excellent when the subject matter would have movement between shots.</p>

<p>I have also experimented with taking one properly exposed RAW file and then creating a series of under and over exposed images from it then having Photomatix process the series to create a HDR image. In doing this you don't have to worry about lining up the images.</p>

<p>I have a older version of Photomatix and I use detail enhancer - under tone mapping. </p>

<p>I did have a tripod. </p>

<p>I also find that one shot and maybe with slide film - with no PP it might be quite diff to an HDR image be it one or multiple files processed from a HDR software. </p>

<p>I also find that ghosting can be seen in some HDR images, the sky particularly in the larger size around the sunset color - the bright yellow orange part - it has a watercolor effect.</p>

<p> </p><div></div>

<p>HDR attempt. Multiple files.</p><div></div>

<p>Sharpness looks less than wonderful, hard to see on a web sized image.</p>

<p>Honestly with that much cloud movement I'd guess you're taking too long to take the shots. Are you touching the camera in order to change exposure compensation? Try setting your camera to automatically bracket at -2/0/+2 and then use a remote to take the 3 shots in quick succession. You'll have much less cloud movement and if you avoid touching the camera at all, much better sharpness.</p>

<p>Some cameras can even be set to fire off the bracketed sequence with one "go" command from a remote. I'm not sure if my camera (Nikon D80) does, I just use the standard 3-shot bracketing and hit the remote three times in quick succession.</p>

<p>Might of been 4 images, the first image prob a 15" exposure. </p>

<p>Yeah I did touch the camera, to change EV but the individual frames don't have much blur on them. Only the completed HDR. </p>

<p>On my final result, I did a HDR as above and I got one good shot of the clouds from a single frame and I did a blend in Photoshop (reveal all command) with the paintbrush. </p>

<p>For the shots above would slide film unedited look v different to HDR due to the limited dynamic range? I have yet to process my slides and compare them, when I took the shot I had with my my D70 and my F100.</p>

<p>Ray, I just loaded your "unprocessed" shot into Artizen HDR and used the "Fattal" tone mapping formula (one of many) and played a little with the adjustments. This may not what you may be after, but I wanted to show you the effects of tone mapping on a single image.</p><div></div>