Shooting HDR.

[Saint]

To anyone one how has shot HDR and had good results with it I have a question. Are you shooting in RAW and using that to get different exposures or are you taking multiple shots at different exposures to get what you are looking for? I have control over the exposure conpensation on my XTi. Would that be enough or am I better off getting shots one at a time at different exposures. Also do you have to take 3 shots are can you do more?

Sorry for so many questions all bunched together but I really want to learn about this HDR stuff. I'm loving the results some people are getting.

~Saint

[venchka]

From what I have read and seen, not yet tried personally:

3 exposures minimum. I have seen 9 exposures used.

Aperture is fixed. Change shutter speed. Shutter speed chnages in 1 stop or 2/3 stop increments.

Obviously a tripod is required.

Use the search feature. Many articles here at TPF about HDR.

Good luck!

[Pikachu]

Take lots o' shots to merge into an HDR. Use aperture priority so the depth of field remains constant, use a tripod and shoot away. I've gone as many as 5 stops over and 5 stops under, in 1/2 stop increments. You can always decide *not* to merge one or more of the many different exposures into an HDR, but it is near to impossible to go back to the same place, set up again in the same light, at the same time of day, with the same shadows...... and so on, and so on.

[TXhummer2]

When learning, an having only a P&S (6/12Mp) that shot jpegs almost as sharply as raw, and bracketing only worked in jpeg mode: my initial HDR images were from 3 only 1EV apart, all from jpegs.

If you get to where Trey or Kevin are in HDR useage, I'd say do what Kevin just said.

With my Fuji multi sensor cameras, the raw files will allow me to go +/-3 EV from one shot, I'm not sure how many cameras will do that.

[bburton]

Lot's of good answers here:

http://www.flickr.com/groups/hdr/

Good luck.

[friscophotoguy]

Try this site also. Photmatix is absolutely the best HDR software out there, IMHO. They also have some other resources and examples.

Photomatix

[metagore]

When I shoot for HDR I use AEB and typically set it at +/- 2EV. I use a tripod and remote. When using the AEB setting on an XT (and probably on XTi) with a remote, the camera will fire off all three exposures one after the next.

I would recommend this method opposed to manually changing the settings between exposures. There are two reasons for this. First, time goes by while you're scrolling to the next exposure setting, clouds move, wind blows, etc. Any moving objects in your exposures will have 'ghosting' when you combine them to HDR. The second reason is that you have to touch your camera to change settings. Every time you touch your camera, even if it's on a tripod, it can move. This could put one of your exposures slightly off from the rest, then you end up with nasty ghosting around the 'edges' in your images.

As to my choice of exposure space (+/- 2 EV), it's simply this; your average camera sensor will capture about 5EV or more of 'high quality' color information. The 'best' place to capture color information is 'to the right' of the histogram, there is less color noise there. So you have about 2.5EV - 5EV of space above the middle of the histogram to capture good color information from the scene. If the exposures are moved in 2EV increments then you're going to capture all of the color information within the histogram's 'sweet spot' with about less overlap between exposures. Exposure spacing of less than 2EV does not harm the quality of the HDR at all. It also doesn't improve it either in my experience. It just increases the amount of overlap between exposures and uses more memory while shooting. I would recommend that you shoot the exposures at 1EV increments as recommended by others, then process an HDR using all exposures, then again with every other exposure and compare the two to see if you notice a difference. Please note that if you do this comparison, that the highest and lowest exposure must be the same images in each HDR processing. (hope that's not too confusing)

A very handy tool for HDR is the Photomatix tonemapping plugin. It can produce some very wild looking results at times. But if used carefully, you can create very natural looking results.

Oh... and I do shoot in RAW... always!!

[Saint]

Thanks all for the very useful replies! I'm really looking forward to getting some experience in this HDR field. I mostly like to shoot shots at night or dusk. Mostly of automobiles. I think being able to utilize HDR will really produve fantastic results in that area of my photography.

~Saint