tmjacobs

<p>I admit most HDR images look pretty awful, but that has (much) more to do with (poor) taste than the technique as such. I use it very often myself, because I like to photograph near sunset and sunrise, which often gives difficult light situations, and I like to think, in all modesty, I get natural results. There's a good article on the internet about natural HDR, google for 'Erik Reinhard flickr HDR', which describes the problems and possible solutions.</p>

 

<p>I have no problem with sending my film to a developing country.</p>

Let me be more precise: what struck me is that whereas the OP was mainly concerned with the loss of detail of the dress, what I see in the 3 versions is that the face and skin are heavily altered and not for the better: the 1st version indeed, as you noticed, has a too 'plasticky' feel. Your version introduces several what seem to be oversaturation artefacts: for instance in her left (for the viewer) armpit and arm and the green foliage which now attracts too much attention. The problem with darkening is that it accentuates the blown-out parts, because they will hardly change and remain almost white, which is most noticeable in her shoulder. My adjustments also has its flaws (loss of detail in her dark hair, for instance), but I didn't want to spend too much time.</p><div></div>

<p>Tiff can be both 8 or 16 bit, but if I'm not mistaken the 300D supports only 8 bit, so indeed it seems you've lost the detail in the highlights for good. Personally I would always expose on the dark side: a dark area is usually less of a problem than a blown-out area, besides: detail in dark areas can usually be brought out again with some post-processing while blown-out areas are mostly 'beyond repair'.<br />

<p>Oops....that should read: "....of other lenses though".</p>

<p>Steven F, a few comments before this, made a small (but confusing) mistake in an otherwise good contribution:<br />"The EFS 10-20mm lens will appear on your camera as 10-20mm"<br />As he rightly says in his introduction, the 40D has a 1.6 crop factor, so 10-22 will appear as 16-35.<br />You have a somewhat unusual collection of other lensen thought: with a 10-22, you'll still miss the 22-28mm range (35-45mm in 35mm equivalent), a fairly common range. But if you don't mind cropping a bit you could cover that with your wide-angle zoomed in.</p>

 

<p>My folders from 2007 onwards (the year is in the folder title) are almost exclusively HDR and I like to think they look natural. Looking back at some of the earlier HDR folders I think I could improve them now, tone-mapping software has improved quite a bit these past few years. I haven't read all replies, but did read Galen Anderson's. Admittedly I could have have had pretty good results with quite a few of these photos without HDR, but for me it's the ease of mind with bracketing every photo (-2, 0 , +2) that I'm pretty sure I capture all, or at least most, of the dynamic range there is. I simply don't think -especially with difficult light situations- that a sensor can always capture that dynamic range. There is of course an alternative with grad filters, but these won't help with interior photography. I use a 'home-made' post-processing PS technique which, for me at least, improves the results -in particular the natural look- quite a bit: I overlay the original '0' exposure and vary the opacity, mostly somewhere between 20 and 50%, that improves contrast and avoids the 'muddy' and oversaturated look so many tone-mapped images have. <br />A nice article about achieving a natural look is this: <a href="http://www.cs.bris.ac.uk/~reinhard/tm_comp/flickr_hdr/Flickr%20HDR.html">http://www.cs.bris.ac.uk/~reinhard/tm_comp/flickr_hdr/Flickr%20HDR.html</a><br />(BTW: you can also see my photography here: <a href="http://www.rtjacobs.nl/Theo/galleries.html">http://www.rtjacobs.nl/Theo/galleries.html</a> )</p>

 

<p>In my opinion you try to generalise what is a very personal point of view. Of course a hobby can mean very different things for different people, but for me I wouldn't associate photography with 'struggle', certainly not the struggle with the technicalities of photography, at most the struggle with making a good composition and waiting for the good light (but that's too much fun to call it struggle). For me, the <em>less</em> camera technology I have to struggle with, the better. The fact that a camera can't guarantee a (technically) perfect shot has to do with the limits there still are in camera technique, mostly with exposure and (less so) with focus. I foresee a camera that has a greatly improved dynamic range (possibly with some sort of HDR-technique) that will make exposure a no-brainer. I've already seen camera's -admittedly very experimental- where one can shift the focus distance and dof <em>after</em> the photo has been taken. I am thrilled with these sort of improvements, shifting the focus away from technicalities to the creative aspects of photography.</p>

Interesting thread, as I suspect my Canon is faulty too. But I would appreciate it if people would mention the sharpen settings with the photos they upload. It makes a huge difference on a Canon whether you have sharpening set to 0 or 4.

Judging from the (way too) many awful HDR photos on the internet, a majority of people don't struggle with the 'realism issue' at all: the more dramatic the photo is, the better. Part of the explanation may be simply this: tone-mapping software (Photomatix etc.) tend to produce these oversaturated and over-the-top results at their default settings, or make it very tempting to move some sliders to get these results. I use HDR quite extensively myself and put a lot of time in post-processing the tone-mapped images and 'restore', you could say, their realism (at least, I like to believe they are). Having said all that I actually don't have a problem with the over-the-top HDR photos you see everywhere on the net, what bothers me is -judging from the rave comments these photos often get- most people don't seem to realise that what they see has little to do with reality. Apart from that quite a few photographers don't take HDR seriously because of this abundance of awful HDR photos.

You say you like to travel light, well...the 40D isn't exactly light. It's quite a bit bulkier and heavier than, say, the XSi or XTi. Choosing the XTi, for instance, would also give you more budget for better lenses. Personally I would choose just one lens, not a super zoom, but approximately an 18-70mm lens. Sigma has a 17-70 lens my brother gets good results with. Canon's own 17-85mm is an option, but I read mixed reviews about that one. That way you travel light, don't have to change lenses and have a practical range: 27 - 110 mm (35mm equivalent) for the Sigma, for instance.

Very sad indeed, my condolences to his family and friends.

I'm somewhat surprised that nobody commented on this issue before (or did so elsewhere on photo.net), but larger photos are left aligned (relative to the middle frame) instead of center aligned. That gives an unattractive page layout when watching larger photos, they 'break out' of the frame to the right, so to speak. Surely this should be easy to fix. Apart from this I like the design.

The re-ordering is a great new feature, thanks a lot for that! My folders are mostly 'photographic travelogues' and it's nice to be able to order them chronologically. A suggestion: I can imagine others too simply want (some of) their folders ordered chronologically. An option to sort the folder by date would be convenient.

You're right that way too many HDR photos look, well, awful. But IMHO that says more about these people's taste than about the HDR technique. In all modesty I think I have been able to achieve pretty natural results. Of course the limitation in HDR is the limited dynamic range of monitors. The tone-mapping process 'flattens' the HDR to something that can be viewed on a monitor. Initially these tone-mapped photos can look pretty 'muddy', but with a good choice of settings and some judicious post-processing the results can be quite convincing.

The halos - still a big problem in the tone-mapping process, are the result of the contrast in those areas. Perhaps I'm wrong, but the way I see it, the tone-mapping process has to in- or decrease the gamma of the different areas to reduce the huge range of the HDR photo. It makes these transitions soft, hence the halos in contrast-rich areas. It's one of the problems that makes a lot of the HDR photos you see on the internet (especially on flickr) awful.

I sense a negative attitude toward HDR (not only in this thread) that I really can't understand.

The way I see it at last there's a way to deal with one of the shortcomings of photography - big contrasts. Until something better comes along - and I think it will - this is a technique that can give some pretty good results that can't be achieved with just one exposure.

I really don't understand how one can say that the mountain scene in the above link shows 'barely any improvement' - the original shows a blown-out sky and the result on page 2 shows a beautiful sky, or is it that we're so used to blown-out skies? This result is impossible with just one exposure.

I agree in a lot of HDR photography (especially on flickr) the results are awful, but that's mostly because most photographers either lack the technique and/or good taste.

Also HDR is not time-consuming - at least not more so than PS. Photomatix is a fairly easy program everybody can learn in 10 minutes, but the use of PS with its steep learning curve is limited to only the more fanatic amateurs/professionals.

I agree the tone-mapping process still has its flaws -the pronounced halos for instance- but I expect these problems will be sorted out in future versions of this software.

The way I see it HDR is a very promising way to remedy one of the greatest shortcomings of photography: the difficulty of capturing big contrasts. The fact that so far the majority of HDR images look very artificial says more about the (lack of) taste and/or knowledge of a lot of photographers than the limitations of HDR/tone-mapping.

I think part of the problem is that the few HDR/tone-mapping programs there are so far give rather artificial results at their standard settings, but because they look so spectacular most people like and accept that rather than try to achieve a more natural look.

But the software is still in its infancy and no doubt will be considerably improved in the coming years.

I can even imagine this technique being built in in consumer cameras. With 3 consecutive exposures this can be done handheld (especially with today's anti-shake techniques), so a tripod won't be necessary anymore and it can be used in situations with movement. (although I suspect future developments may very well include sensors capable of capturing a much wider dynamic range with just one exposure)

Just imagine how careless photography will become.....

I have read many times that the comments are considered of (much) more use than the ratings, but the fact is it takes a lot of time to write a good comment. Therefore the number of ratings is much, much higher. I have a few photos with 25 or more ratings and only 1 or 2 comments. Doing away with the rating system will therefore give a lot of photographers very little or no feedback - I don't expect the number of comments will increase after the rating system stops. Of course what you learn from these ratings is very much a personal thing, but for myself I have definitely learned from it and I certainly wouldn't want to miss it - despite the few problems it is experiencing.

 

A few alterations I would suggest: increase the number of photos needed for a listing from 3 to 10 (that has been suggested earlier). Also I would suggest that only the 10 best photos (with >10 ratings)in someone's portfolio are used to calculate the average. (but still all the photos with >10 ratings are shown)

The reason for this is: there are quite a few photographers with very good photos in their portfolio but their average is lowered by their 'lesser' photos. Some choose to delete the photos that get lower ratings, others don't and that seriously influences one's ranking. For instance: if I was to delete all but my best 3 photos my rating would go from 11.78 to (app.) 12.7 getting me to no. 20 - a place where I definitely don't belong :(