Solaris Photographia
Kites
Posted by Brian (West Lafayette, United States) on 30 August 2007 in Landscape & Rural.
Amir made a comment about HDR shots, so I thought I'd try my hand at it. This is an HDR image made from 3 (simulated) bracketed exposures.
Lost Valley from Kamloops, BC, Canada
Great job Brian! Did you find you had to do a fair amount of tone mapping or cropping to get the three images to match? Looks as if this one was a total success :-) Did you enjoy working on it?
I like the overall framing of this photo too!
30 Aug 2007 5:08am
Lorraine from Gatineau, Canada
Wow! you did that really well, surreal feel to it, imagine that, ghosts flying kites...Way to go Brian!!!
30 Aug 2007 8:13am
Brian from United States
HDR is a lot of fun. To do it right, you really need to use bracketed exposures. What I did was to take a single image and then lower and raise the brightness, saving the results of each operation. I then combined the 3 images in Photomatix Pro and did the tone mapping. I then pulled the resulting tone mapped image into Paint Shop Pro for the final processing, which was mostly noise reduction (using one image for HDR produces significant noise. If I had used 3 separate, bracketed exposures, the noise would have been significantly lower.
Frankly, it's not a technique I would use too often--hyperrealism gets old fast if you over-use it. I have one more image tomorrow that uses the same HDR technique.
30 Aug 2007 2:03pm
Amir from X, United States
Very cool Brian. Can you share with us how you saved the EXIF. I am asking since I have done a lot of HDR and because each shot have slightly different exposure, they don't share the same EXIF data. Appreciate if you clarify on this subject.
30 Aug 2007 2:30pm
Amir from X, United States
Oops, you answered my question in your previous reply. So it's only one image. I usually take 3 to 5 images and combine them. The method you used is also known "Fake HDR" because it uses one Image and manipulates it, nevertheless the result is superb.
30 Aug 2007 2:32pm
Brian from United States
Amir--I'm looking forward to using this technique with some bracketed exposures on the Rebel. I might give it a try this weekend. I think you can also use Photomatix as a plug in to Photoshop--and that makes it even easier to produce HDR images--fake and otherwise!
30 Aug 2007 2:39pm
Seraphine from San Francisco, United States
You did a lot of work on this photo, but the results are great.
30 Aug 2007 3:12pm
Natalia from Louisville, United States
That is such beautiful and peaceful image of endless summer days. You want just to behold the image...
30 Aug 2007 3:50pm
Janice Thomson from Courtenay BC, Canada
The detail of the cloud cover alone is superb but I would agree as your own words indicate this is not a process to be overused in ordinary photography. Excellent work Brian.
30 Aug 2007 3:50pm
Daniel from Scranton, United States
A little advice on the Hdr. I don't know if you really NEEED to bracket as that can take to long. IF you have the plugin for photoshop it does it for you in your toolbar and saves time. Brighness and contrast has nothing to do with the Hdr it's more of exposure and or white balance manipulation. If your looking for a fast way to batch it just download the plugin and you have your hdr in a matter of minutes.... This will also alow you to layer mask the parts that you don't want as that can be a problem with working with three or more exposures. Just a helpful hint
Daniel
30 Aug 2007 5:56pm
Images by KC Photography from Redmond, United States
Great shot, the colours really stand out
30 Aug 2007 7:14pm
MaryB from Staffordshire, United Kingdom
Wow! that's really cool work Brian :)
PS thanks for you kind comments today :)
30 Aug 2007 10:34pm
Dave MacIntyre from Toronto, Canada
Nice shot Brian! I like the bright umbrella and how it compliments the kites!
30 Aug 2007 11:34pm
Viewfinder from Bradenton, United States
You have far out distanced my level of PP technology with this nice photo, Brian. Good work my friend.
31 Aug 2007 4:02am
Lightwalker from Budapest, Hungary
Looks as if it was moonlit or some eerie light source worked on the scene. The houses in the background look abandoned and bleaky with their huge black eyes. Strange scene. ;-)
1 Sep 2007 10:10am
DiMAGE Z2
1/800 second
F/5.6
ISO 50
7 mm