John_Nevill
New member
This is my first attempt at tone-mapped HDR photography, so be gentle with me!
This afternoon I was itching to try some HDR photography and decided to set up a tripod in the garden. I grabbed the 5D attached the Sigma 12-24 and hunted around for the remote cable release.
Measuring the low(ish) sun, high-backlit scene at f/11 (ISO 100) using spot metering yeilded highlights at >1/8000 sec and shadows at <1/2 sec. That's >13 EV compared to ~8.2 EV (dpreview test) for the 5D.
I set the camera on manual, f/11 at 12mm and shot five exposures; 1/8, 1/30, 1/125, 1/500 and 1/2000. I reckoned these speeds would give me ~1EV headroom at the extremes and would also provide enough transition information for tone-mapping without adding too much noise.
Using Photomatix, I imported the 5 RAW files and created the HDR image. The reported DR was 9,755:1 (not far off the the human eye).
I then tonemapped the image to a 16bit TIFF using detail enhancer with; strength at 70, saturation at 55, light smoothing at high and luminosity at 3.
The TIFF was then sent to CS3, where a contrast boosting S-curve was applied together with minor level adjustments, dust removal and nic's sharpening.
The TIFF was saved as a PSD and imported into Lightroom, where minor HSL and tone adjustments were made prior to outputting to 8-bit sRGB jpeg. A full size jpeg (6.7mb) can be found here.
Ok my garden is not the most eye grabbing subject matter, nor will I win any points for compostion, but I'm defintely hooked on the intensity and tonal capabilities of this style of photography.
Now to find some proper landscapes!
All comments, critiques and tips welcome.
This afternoon I was itching to try some HDR photography and decided to set up a tripod in the garden. I grabbed the 5D attached the Sigma 12-24 and hunted around for the remote cable release.
Measuring the low(ish) sun, high-backlit scene at f/11 (ISO 100) using spot metering yeilded highlights at >1/8000 sec and shadows at <1/2 sec. That's >13 EV compared to ~8.2 EV (dpreview test) for the 5D.
I set the camera on manual, f/11 at 12mm and shot five exposures; 1/8, 1/30, 1/125, 1/500 and 1/2000. I reckoned these speeds would give me ~1EV headroom at the extremes and would also provide enough transition information for tone-mapping without adding too much noise.
Using Photomatix, I imported the 5 RAW files and created the HDR image. The reported DR was 9,755:1 (not far off the the human eye).
I then tonemapped the image to a 16bit TIFF using detail enhancer with; strength at 70, saturation at 55, light smoothing at high and luminosity at 3.
The TIFF was then sent to CS3, where a contrast boosting S-curve was applied together with minor level adjustments, dust removal and nic's sharpening.
The TIFF was saved as a PSD and imported into Lightroom, where minor HSL and tone adjustments were made prior to outputting to 8-bit sRGB jpeg. A full size jpeg (6.7mb) can be found here.
Ok my garden is not the most eye grabbing subject matter, nor will I win any points for compostion, but I'm defintely hooked on the intensity and tonal capabilities of this style of photography.
Now to find some proper landscapes!
All comments, critiques and tips welcome.