Hey Guys,

ive been playing around with A DSLR (nikon D40x) for the past yr now, and although im still learning alot, and havnt really mastered any parituclar fields or styles of photography, i think my general grasp on photography as a whole is coming along swimmingly...

I never knew HDR photos existed till the other night...

I had a crack at it... and was rather disappointed with the results.

I know a D40x isnt the best body for this type of photography... But i was just wondering if someone could post a mini tutorial of how they take theirs...

I have CS2 and CS3, and also Photomatix (i did a bit of research on apps for HDR)

Any help would be greatly appreciated!!

Thanx

As you'd already know, it's just three shots in a bracketed set at under, normal, and over-exposed, then layer them on top of one another, and then tone-map.

Just type in HDR CS3 Tutorials into Google and you'll get a wide range of results. Or you could always PM Chris F as HDR is his fortay.

HDR touts

helped me, hope it helps you!

You can do HDR different ways and with different apps.

Some purists think it HAS to be separate exposures but that means that you can't create a HDR of a moving subject (and most HDR shots that include clouds will never be as sharp as if they were made from one image).

So what you can do is shoot in raw for starters, then save one TIFF -2.00 in exposure, one as 0.00 and one as +2.00 (if needed) and HDR that. Use Tiff as it's better than JPG to HDR from. This of course is limited so make sure you underexpose your stock shot 1/3rd to 2/3rds of a stop to keep the highlights from blowing out.

The HDR's i did in my thread of the landscapes are all from one exposure. It's also basically impossible to take 3 shots plus hand held to HDR from so using the one shot method is win there.

You can also do a composite which isn't HDR, but do the same -2.00 and 0.00 save as TIFF's and then open one, copy the second shot into it and mask the sky in.

THEN of course you could just use a curves layer on the sky to darken it to make a more brooding sky or lighten the foreground..

I find Tonemapping to be a completely different image to what Photoshop will make. Photomatixs feels very fake to me, I have both the app and the CS3 plug-in. If I ever use it it's usually fairly light. One tip with Photomatix to stop it looking so crap and giving halo's is always make sure the 'strength' is equal or lower than the light smoothing, otherwise it'll get all halo'd and look poo.

make sure you use a tripod when doing the 3 shots
they need to be exactly the same

Totally, a MUST for multiple exposure HDR..


And speaking of TRIPODS... WHO WANTS TO BUY MINE? At $100 now - friggin' steal!

http://www.brisbanephotography.com/viewtop...f=15&t=9470

Thanx for all the input guys, appreciate it.. Will have to give some of these tuts a go!
Nick that link to you tripod didnt work.. it was asking for a login.. though i am keen for it... the head on my tripod is loose and is really wobbly :S

i always use photomatix tone mapping for my HDR

can u explain how to use photomatix a bit more please... do you combine the 3 images together in photomatix and then do the tone mapping?

i use cs3 to merge the 3 photos, then tone map with photomatix... then i jsu tplay until i get it how i like

kool thanx matt, now i have a mission for my holidays.. to start taking some HDR's well at least attempt with a d40x