HDR, digital camera necessary?

[alejandro_marin]

<p>Been looking at a lot of HDR photos and I'm intrigued, but I come from a large format background. I always plan on printing big when taking photos. Wondering if it's possible to use my 4x5 camera to realize the HDR process. Can't afford a medium format digital camera.</p>

<p> </p>

[graybrick]

<p>Yes, with a little effort. Good scans should grab most of the DR of your film, and you can make different exposure levels to use in the HDR process, or you can set your tripod and shoot multiple frames with different exposure levels to use for HDR. This is, at least, my understanding of what goes in to the HDR imaging process (combining multiple exposures of the same scene). </p>

[grant_hagen]

<p> What Greyson said.<br>

Additionally, if you don't do your own developing & printing, tell the photo shop not to do anything that might alter the density of your negatives. Some places might take it on themselves to try to "rescue" your under and overexposed negatives -- not good if you want to scan them for HDR.<br>

Also, when you make your scans, turn off any exposure correction that might be enabled in the scanner. You <em>want</em> the exposure variation.</p>

[wogears]

<p>In addition, make sure you use the steadiest tripod available, and change shutter speed rather than aperture when bracketing your exposures.</p>

[don_bryant2]

<p>Yes you can do this with film, but be aware that there won't be perfect alignment of the image from sheet to no matter how carefully you expose the film. They should be very close but exact registration is near impossible. However most HDR software padkages have an alignment feature.<br>

One problem you may encounter is the amount of memory required to process large format scans. These will certainly test the software and your computer.</p>

[r_johnston]

<p>OR you can surprise yourself with what can be done in Photoshop with good exposure in a negative or RAW digital shots. Capture various areas of the image and use layer, levels to adjust for best exposure to print. You will find the shadow details in a good negative can print by adjusting the levels, that would never show otherwise. Then capture the Highlight areas in another level and adjust them to levels which will also print. If careful you can capture many levels and adjust each one to what you desire. <br>

Think Darkroom, burning and dodging in Photoshop instead.</p>

[alejandro_marin]

<p>Thanks to all who responded. It's time to get to work on this one. </p>

[AaronFalkenberg]

<p>I've been down this road, and for any automatic alignmnet software it will be nothing but headaches. It's nigh impossible to get the same crop and crop size between two sheets of film. HDR alignment software like that found in Photomatix is great for pixel sized shifts and moving objects within the image like tree branches or ripples in water. With a scan, however, most of the time you end up with two near idential shots, but with the introduction of the scanning processes, two files that are shifted slightly compared to one another. It's been my experience that Photomatix, Enfuse, etc. can't overly and align an entirely shifted image. The former won't even attempt it if the images are even 1 pixel out of identical image dimensions.<br>

Your best bet is to make two, or at most three shots. Scan them, and then manually align them as layers in PS, adjusting opacity, contrast, etc. to suit. It's really no more work than properly using the available HDR software. </p>

[kelly_flanigan1]

<p>Using two exposures for one LF print with more lighting range is abit old; ie PRE civil war. Its just a 150 year old method. Its just new to digital for some folks. If anybody thinks this is new it just means they think a lens is new; or glass plates; or a bellows; or a tripod.</p>

[kelly_flanigan1]

<p>A pre WW2 Kodak book had one shooting a building with two exposures; one for the twlight sky; another for the buildings lights. Or one could shoot two different pltes/sheets and combine them with one print. All digital does is uses a different tool for a pre Civil war concept</p>

[AaronFalkenberg]

<p>And even in a traditional darkroom, pinpoint registration is extremely difficult.</p>