Everything is HDRish

[pge]

<p>Lex, you may not like my lighting suggestions or think it is amateur, but I was certainly not trolling.</p>

<p>I was doing a before and after shoot for a designer friend of mine and I was trying to get a shot of a small staircase that had changed from carpet to hardwood. The staircase went up to the front door of the apartment and there was no lighting. I tried a few things that were just not working and then I took a speedlight and put it on the landing pointed straight up. It light up the landing and I just cloned the speedlight out in post. Ok so it wasn't art and the great masters would not have done it but for a quick and dirty solution it worked.</p>

[Matt Laur]

<p>Phil: I didn't see Jeff's question that way at all. In the context established earlier in the thread, he asked how one would approach a low-budget (meaning, very time-limited) real estate interior task. At that price, elaborate lighting (or even much of anything that isn't in your hot shoe) isn't an option. Shooting quickly with the available light and taking advantage, in post, of the recorded dynamic range to speedily render output that doesn't hide details in the shadows: that's what you have to do. That reality was implicit in the question, really.<br /><br />Using post tools to reveal shadow details (an "HDR-ish" technique in keeping with the OP's post) isn't necessarily about some faddish aesthetic or about deliberately Velvet Elvis type garish looks. Sometimes it's about using just enough of it to make up for the fact that doing things like lighting an apartment during the 3 minutes you have in each room to shoot it from several angles is impossible. I've been in exactly that position many times, and solve it the same way. When I have time for elaborate lighting, I use it. In the real world of time and budget constraints, you expose as well as you can, shoot RAW, and use post.<br /><br />The advice earlier to simply skip such jobs is also missing the point. I have a client that brings me a lot of business. Sometimes multi-thousand dollar jobs for which I haul along a truck full of lighting gear. And other times, we have 15 minutes to make something better than what he'd otherwise do with his iPhone. I don't pass on those tasks because I value the larger relationship with that client, and doing the work that leans on post production more than painstaking lighting is part of how I invest in securing the more lucrative gigs that also come along with that relationship. All of that is part of the consideration when I reach for the "shadows" slider in post. It actually matters, and it's not glib or an attack to make that clear.</p>

[pge]

<p>Matt I am not sure why you think that I disagree with any of this. Quoting myself from earlier:</p>

 

<blockquote>

<p>Two, I am doing a website for a store and needed a fast few shots of the inside. No light, quick shots, and I fixed them in post by substantially lifting the shadows. Two situations call for two different approaches. Neither was wrong as I see it. Yet I am aware, as you are, that lifting shadows too much can be a disaster. I do my best to stay within the bounds of good taste.</p>

</blockquote>

[lex_jenkins]

<blockquote>

<p>"Matt I am not sure why you think that I disagree with any of this."</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Perhaps it's because you seem to continually change the ground rules throughout this conversation. You asserted a fairly rigid thesis in the initial post, then modified it to accept countering opinions that occasionally compromises are appropriate to do a job cost effectively and without going overboard into garish cartoon colors.<br>

<br>

But even after those nuances and apparent agreements on common issues, you continually return to the pedantic tone of the opening premise. And when another member attempts to find common ground ... again ... you acknowledge that there is common ground ... again ... and, again, reassert the same inflexible "Yes, but... real photographers do it my way" posturing.<br>

<br>

Lather, rinse, repeat. The conversation makes zero progress because you're continually reclaiming common ground rather than acknowledging any agreements or compromises.<br>

<br>

</p>

[pge]

<p>Thanks Lex for your explanation. I feel like I have been consistent although perhaps I have not. I don't think I ever suggested that lifting shadows was "evil" outright. What I tried to say was that its overuse was something I was noticing all too much. I also tried to say that I was not innocent in this regard but I do try to restrain myself, particularly now that I have become more and more aware of when it doesn't work. I agree that it is a tool and therefore has some good uses. As far as people like Jeff who use this technique to make a job quicker, I acknowledge that this is a legitimate use and I have done it myself, although honestly I never really started out this conversation thinking about fast photography. I had in my mind photographs where we are really trying to do our best work. I used the term "thought out photographs" in my original post to convey this. At any rate it has been an interesting conversation, at least for me, and I hope for some others. </p>