HDR

[Rick F.]

Tim,

Me, too. I especially like the chocolate factory photo.

Rick F.

[Flash!]

You guys are killing me. I look back now at pictures I've taken and wish I'd done them in HDR!!

Jody

[Rick F.]

You guys are killing me. I look back now at pictures I've taken and wish I'd done them in HDR!!

Jody

Jody,

You're not alone--it happens to me, too! Every time I see a washed-out sky in one of my photos, I think "If only I'd known about HDR then…"

I wonder if the great majority of digital cameras will have built-in HDR processing within a few years?

Rick F.

[Unity]

I wonder if the great majority of digital cameras will have built-in HDR processing within a few years?

I snooped around a little -- we're closer than I guessed! Take a look at this in-progress rundown of cameras with auto exposure bracketing (AEB).

--John

[Rick F.]

John,

Actually, what I meant was when will digital cameras have not only auto-exposure bracketing and on-board digital processing to combine the images into an HDR photo? I think there are a couple of cameras out there now that do this, but I'm guessing most will within a few years.

Rick

PS: Thanks for the AEB list. I see that the successor to my Canon SX10IS no long has the ± 2 stop AEB capability--it's only ± 1 1/3 for some reason.

PPS: Maybe because Canon is working on a built-in HDR capability, and they want owners of the SX20IS to upgrade??

PPPS: That sounds kind of cynical. But no matter how cynical you become, it's never enough to keep up!

[Unity]

Actually, what I meant was ...

Having slowed down to read what you actually wrote, I see that you did say what you meant -- I just wasn't paying attention.

--John

[RocketMan]

I think I read where some sensors are now being produced that can adjust the sensitivity of the different areas to achieve the tonal range as what HDR does, though on a more limited basis such are adjusting a whole area rather than just individual pixels. I think my Pen even does that to a certain extent. It just seems that since we can adjust the whole sensor to increase or decrease the sensitivity of it as a unit, having an algorithm that can do that on each individual sensor within the matrix shouldn’t be that hard. Just do the calculations based on the default settings chosen for the whole then do some sort of comparative computations for each pixel in the matrix based on a plus-minus setting chosen by the user or some default setting for all pictures. Cameras already do a lot of adjustments for jpeg, so why not a RAW+HDR setting just like the RAW+JPEG option? If it could be done with just a single image, ghosting and blurring problems would be solved. Obviously the sensor as a whole is capable of a very wide range already otherwise the +/- settings for ISO wouldn’t work. Seems like a no-brainer to me though obviously its not quite That simple, and there are those pesky problems with more grain with increased gain…

then all we need is a camera that gives you an electric shock when you are about to take a really crappy photo, or an electronic "tap on the shoulder" when a good photo op is close at hand! Ha Ha!

RM

[DogHouse]

Here's another.





Here's the EV 0

[JimVonBaden]

The top one might be a bit overdone, but the bottom one looks great!

Jim

[DogHouse]

One more

[RocketMan]

The top one might be a bit overdone, but the bottom one looks great!

Jim

agreed, the thing I'm finding with some of my "nature" shots with HDR is that the "motion" blur is very distracting. Soft blur is one thing but the motion blur of things moving is not, I think it may be because its not so much motion blur as it is multiple exposure "blur" which isn't really blur at all. Having multiple images overlaid but slightly offset makes it hard on the eyes, as if your eyes are trying to reconcile the images into one, esp. edges, but can not. I don't know if this is because the way the eyes work ( even when staring at one spot, they are in constant motion, darting about to help resolve details, etc) or if it is a function of the brains processing the image. i.e. it "knows" it should a single image/edge/outline and is trying resolve the "inconsistency" of the image having more than one.

This is what I see in the two above, now the blur of the water is nice in the first one, just as a slow shutter shot would look, I guess because water does not have distinct edges so I'm not "expecting" any, whereas the plants and leaves too have edges so they should be distinct as in the lower image, or have a soft edge but not multiple ones.

Well, not sure if I stated that all with any clarity, but something about the multiple images blur factor in nature shots just really bothers me and detracts from the impact the image might otherwise have.

RM

[RocketMan]

For anyone using linux check out this guys workflow web page using linux based command line tools.

http://photoblog.edu-perez.com/2009/02/ ... linux.html
also at the bottom is list of programs he uses. I've compiled some of those on my linux machine running Ubuntu, took a while as i had to compile a new compiler (always fun!) and kept having to go out and find new libraries for lots of it, but once I put it all together, works really nice. I now have Luminance HDR, Hugin panorama tools, Gimp and Raw Threrapee and that pretty much covers everything I need to do graphics wise. Some is available for windows as well but doesn't run as well from what I've seen.

I'll post some results in while once I've experimented with it some, but the stacking and infusing routines work really well. Check out the Hugin project on hugin.sourceforge.com and the sourceforge project in general for some kool software, just be prepared for a challenge if compiling the source code yourself!

RM