single shot HDR

[steve santikarn]

<p>are we going to get single shot HDR option in future Canon DSLR now that iPhone can do it?</p>

[Matt Laur]

<p>Well, the very concept is something of a mis-nomer. The point of the HDR technique is to combine <em>multiple</em> exposures, each of which is exposed to handle a different part of the final combined work. The idea is that a single exposure doesn't have the dynamic range to preserve enough details in the highlights and shadows at the same time. So you expose once for the shadows, once for the highlights (and perhaps more), and combine those shots into a single tone-mapped image that takes advantage of the best of each exposure.<br /><br />The results, of course, usually look awful unless they're done with great care and subtlety. Most just-add-water HDR solutions are aimed at producing the cartoonish monstrosities that are currently (but hopefully briefly) trendy in some circles.<br /><br />So, any process that claims to produce an "HDR" result from a single shot is just doing a bunch of one-shot tone mapping to create a style similar to that look. It can't (by definition) create an actual HDR image, because without multiple images, there is no more dynamic range than was present in the original shot.</p>

[cabbiinc]

<p>I don't agree completely with Matt, but for present technology he is correct. If you consider that HDR is a process, then one shot doesn't cut it. On the other hand if Canon were to make a sensor that just captures more dynamic range than their current cameras offer then you wouldn't call it HDR, you'd just call it a better camera. The result could be much the same though.</p>

[mukul_dube]

<p>I am an Olympus user and cannot speak of Canon. However, what I shall say here is independent of camera brands.<br>

Often, when the brightness range in a photograph is too great, I combine three different TIFF conversions of the same raw format image. The procedure makes images presentable which otherwise would not be worth looking at. Initial contrast is low, and there is noise in shadow areas: but I have used it to save many pictures.</p><div></div>

[steve santikarn]

<p>I believe that iPhone 4 combine multiple exposures to make a single HDR image all in one click</p>

[dan_south]

Any came a with automatic bracketing can take three photos in a very short time, each with a different exposure level.

Nikon limits the exposure difference to one stop, so for the customary -2, 0, +2 bracket you need to take five shots instead

of three. Canon lets you do it in three shots.

 

What more do you want? You can't take three images simultaneously that exceed the range of the sensor, and it the

images didn't exceed the range of the sensor you wouldn't have to do HDR in the first place.

 

What I would like to see from Canon is improved detail and lower noise in the shadow areas. Nikon and Leica produce

much cleaner shadow areas IMHO. This is a weak spot for Canon that they need to address. But their auto bracketing

works flawlessly.

 

The other thing we need is HDR software that produces realistic color and contrast instead of the Martian Landscape

mess that they produce today. Today's HDR is like they tie-dyed T-shirts of the late 60's and early 70's. In twenty years

people will look back and say, "Oh, yes, I remember those hideous colors. We thought they were cool!"

[ilya_e]

<p>Can you provide more information? Do you have a link?</p>

[Matt Laur]

<p>Ok, so that's <em>not</em> a single-shot technique. It's the combination of multiple exposure-bracketed shots. Most people who are more serious about the output (and are using something like a DSLR) are going to want to do that in post production, using any of the many software tools that already exist just for that purpose. If the iPhone app is doing it on the fly, it's still doing it after the exposures have all been taken, and of course it's having to decide how to reconcile movement of the subjects and/or the camera in the time between those exposures. When you handle that process yourself, you have far more control over the results. Presumably, one only goes down that road because there is a serious need for that tone-mapped look. And if it's that serious, then what's a few mouseclicks?<br /><br />As for some newer technology coming along, recording higher dynamic range in a single exposure ... sure, of course. It's inevitable. Just as it's been steadily improving all along. But we use the term "HDR" in its current context to mean "higher dynamic range than you can get with a single exposure" - and even if the sensors support higher DR than we're getting now, combinations of multiple exposures will always provide more still.</p>

[mukul_dube]

<p>Ilya E and Matt Laur, I cannot make out if you are responding to my post.</p>

[szrimaging]

<p>This thread is full of half truthes.</p>

<p>First, HDR software of decent quality is not responsible for the garish colors, the people doing it are.<br>

Second, HDR is high dynamic range, which means that you have a very large dynamic range available to you, much beyond the dynamic range of an 8-bit or 16-bit file.</p>

<p>Any image can be made into HDR, just convert it into a 32-bit file in Photoshop. This doesn't mean that the image will gain anything from the conversion, it just means you have a lot of extra "room" to work in for your colors.</p>

<p>Once you move from 32-bit to 16-bit or 8-bit, you are no longer working in HDR, but LDR.</p>

<p>Any image that is manipulated entirely in the 16-bit and 8-bit workspace is LDR. Doesn't matter how many bracketted exposures are used in different layers, it is still an LDR image because it doesn't have the available range of a 32-bit file.</p>

<p>Now then, if you moved the 16-bit file from your single image of a well processed RAW file into the 32-bit space, you do get access to the tonemappers when you bring it back to the 16-bit space. You will not gain anything new, nor have any better noise characteristics. It just lets you change up the tonemapping if you want to do some of the affects people are calling "garish".</p>

[ilya_e]

<blockquote>

<p>Ilya E and Matt Laur, I cannot make out if you are responding to my post.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Sorry, that was meant for the OP.</p>

[szrimaging]

<p>I did miss the point of the OP's origianl comment. To that, I have to say, the iPhone's implementation is not HDR. It may use HDRi techniques to arrive at it's final output, but the final output is still LDR.</p>

<p>Once you see a camera outputting in 32-bit files, let me know. And given that, by my understanding, sensor are already capturing luminance values, we can't be too far off of capturing 32-bit data in RAW. I would look into how the new REDs are doing their (true) HDR video capture. That is a much better option than the software trick of the iPhone.</p>

[hjoseph7]

<p>HDR is nothing new, even Ansel Adams and other photographers used it extensively by combining 2 negatives in the darkroom. Ansel Admas used it mostly to capture detail in blown out skies not sure what other photographers might have used it for.<br>

What I think Matt is saying is that these photographs came out looking normal. Even more "normal" or natural than if just one exposure was taken of the scene. This is not the case with so-called HDR today. Many of the photographs look as normal as if you were living on another planet. However, the ones that are done really well are the ones where you can't tell if they are HDR.<br>

I don't have anything against the over-saturated, pastel and cartoonish style that many call HDR. Some of these photgraphs are really amazing, but I just think they should be called something else. </p>

[jaydesi]

<p>I found a website that says the iPhone 4 takes 3 bracketed shots in rapid succession and combines them. Just Google iPhone 4 HDR and you'll find a few. The example I saw posted an HDR shot of someone moving, and her arms disappeared in the HDR version because the software couldn't reconcile them...which definitely says it's taking more than one shot and tweaking that.</p>

 

[arie_vandervelden1]

<p><em>Any image can be made into HDR, just convert it into a 32-bit file in Photoshop ... Once you move from 32-bit to 16-bit or 8-bit, you are no longer working in HDR, but LDR.</em></p>

<p>Not true. By sampling the range you have more finely you do not increase the range. Sampling more finely does not recover clipped highlights or solid black shadows.<em><br /></em></p>

[cabbiinc]

<p>So, the original question was to the effect of "will Canon make a camera that does what the iPhone does now" in regards to HDR. Well I have seen talk that Canon secured a patent on a camera with in camera HDR capabilities but that doesn't mean that they will produce a camera with it. It would have to produce exactly what I needed in camera for me to consider buying one, and I won't have the same needs and desires as others. That in and of itself may be something they consider and not want to bother with if they cant offer enough choices on processing.</p>

<p>Then again, I'm opinionating on a rumor that I read online<br>

http://gizmodo.com/5561208/canons-in+camera-hdr-patent-will-let-you-take-pictures-like-this<br>

Please note if you follow this link and look at the example picture keep in mind the picture is what the article writer put in the article, not Canon.</p>

[tim_eastman]

<p>As Jay pointed out, bracketing works fine on still subjects, but movement is problematic. There are too many opinions on the right exposure, let alone color balances to make any in- camera HDR processing a parlor trick akin to D lighting or any other processing which done out of camera can be much better handled. The I Phone HDR is pretty cool though!</p>

 

[steve santikarn]

<p>thanks for the responses. I guess the iPhone4 HDR trick may go into point-and-shoot type cameras first, then perhaps move into more serious segment if proved popular. The result from the camera phoone is indeed very impressive (and simeple), you do have the option of using single shot or HDR all in one click!</p>

[gooseberry]

<blockquote>

<p>Sitthivet Santikarn <br /><em>are we going to get single shot HDR option in future Canon DSLR</em></p>

</blockquote>

<p>We already have it, and not just with Canon DSLRs but with any digital images (refer PS and Gimp or dedicated tonemapping apps<em>). </em>If you're talking about some build-in peace of "special effect" code over which you'd have no control that would spit JPEGs, I truly hope they'll never introduce that kind of junk into DSLRs; it's the domain of Point & Shoot.<em><br /></em></p>

[willhl]

<p>Would it be possible for a camera to take bracketed shots closer together by not using the shutter?<br>

The new DSLR's can capture video at 30 fps, imagine if a camera could capture 3 or 5 or whatever images at a similar rate. While it wouldn't be a 1 shot HDR if you could get 3 shots in 1/10th second you are getting pretty close.</p>

[gaule]

<p>I see the forthcoming iteration of DxO Optics Pro (6.5) is said to offer "Single Shot HDR technology for optimized rendering of contrasted scenes". This seems distinct from the coming multi-shot HDR plug-in that they are also announcing for November. The single-shot technology is attributed, rather cryptically, to "enhanced automatic local exposure correction". We will have to wait and see what it brings.</p>

[justin_stott]

<blockquote>

<p> I guess the iPhone4 HDR trick may go into point-and-shoot type cameras first</p>

</blockquote>

<p>That's what my Sony TX5 point and shoot does, 2 exposures combined, although you have no control over the process, not even exposure compensation. They call it backlight correction HDR.</p>

<p>They also use some of those video characteristics for other tricks, sweep panorama and such.</p>

[plasma181]

<p>I have done a cheated HDR with 35mm film. I take an exposure, which will have a range greater than a digital image, scan it, and make 2 images of different brightnesses. Then I make one a layer over the other and use the eraser tool to make certain areas lighter or darker. I guess we can call it HAHDR, ( half - a** high dynamic range ). </p>