HDR - Your view.....

dinners

dinners

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Phil
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HDR (High Dynamic Range)

Cropped up in a recent thread and reminded me of a conversation I had a couple of days ago with friends of mine.

For anybody that doesn't know......Sometimes a scene contains very bright and and very dark areas and the camera may be unable to correctly expose both. To get around the problem you take more than one exposure to capture the extremes and blend them together to create a single image of correct exposure.

Anyway HDR - love it or loathe it what is your view of how HDR should be used or more to the point - how do you prefer it to be used in terms of the results you see.

Some said - The perfect HDR image should 'appear' to be nothing more than one very well exposed image.

Some said - HDR is a 'style' which is not possible with one exposure in any conditions.

I accept we can dodge and burn and if in doubt under expose as detail can be brought back providing it's not burned but from an HDR point of view i'm keen to get peoples thoughts.
 
Im sure there are supporters of both statements, and ive seen good examples of both, as well as bad. Nothing wrong in a bit of creativity, to be honest i wished i had the skills to do thiss sort of work. Im sure others will offer better thought out reasons to your post.

Regards brian.
 
HDR is as legitimate in the digital era as dodging and burning was in the darkroom - they were both done for the same reason: To convey the photographers vision or interpretation of a subject.
 
HDR....not keen myself, always looks a little bit too 'real' I don't like photos to look how I saw them at the scene. I love white sky, the less detail the better for me (y)
*Disclaimer* - some of the above may be the opposite to my real opinion

Seriously though, HDR is great for me. I don't like my shots straight from the camera, there is nothing of me in it, yeah I composed it, set the settings and pressed the shutter, but any fool can do that in reality. I like to make a shot my own when it comes to the processing, sometimes I will use HDR to make a shot appear as I saw it, other times I will use it to create a completely different image to what I saw, but usually because the original just did 'do it' for me.
 
I think it depends on the photo sometimes it works, sometimes not.

There is a place for everything.
 
HDR is a digital process not photography and the resultant images are a digital creation not a photograph. so long as you don't confuse them its ok in my book lol
 
As long as it's not overdone, I think it's a perfectly valid technique.
 
Haven't tried to produce HDR images yet, but I've seen some stunning results. The second statement reflects my understanding more than the first.
 
I like my pictures to look realistic... sometimes I can't expose shots properly, especially if the sun is in front of me. Those times I try HDR, sometimes successfully, sometimes not. But I like to keep it subtle.

Therefore, I am not a big fan of overcooked HDR like the images nuttyboy linked.
 
Generally they look terrible and untasteful ...IMO.

Graduated ND filter or Digital equivalent...Yes.
HDR? No.
 
POAH said:
HDR is a digital process not photography and the resultant images are a digital creation not a photograph. so long as you don't confuse them its ok in my book lol
Click to expand...

Darkroom photography is a chemical / light process, not photography.. etc etc... the resulting images are a chemical / light creation, not a photograph...


Did you ever work in a darkroom? Cos I did and the amount of manipulating was unreal.... dont like the sky? change it... to light? burn it in...
It's photography, an artists impression.
 
A succesful hdr for me, is one that you cannot tell it has been used, and if thats the case then thats cool, another pp tool to be used, however i generally I find them to look ridiculous.

I always prefer to expose correctly with one shot using nd grads, failing that 3 shots. one for the foreground one for the sky and one for the mid tones and then merge using layer masks.

just my opinion

Ewan
 
Ewan Hitchcoe said:
A succesful hdr for me, is one that you cannot tell it has been used, and if thats the case then thats cool, another pp tool to be used, however i generally I find them to look ridiculous.

I always prefer to expose correctly with one shot using nd grads, failing that 3 shots. one for the foreground one for the sky and one for the mid tones and then merge using layer masks.

just my opinion

Ewan
Click to expand...

Bournemouth eh?
we must sort a tp meet down here
 
Thanks for all responses folks.

For what it's worth - my view was that I like it when I see a well exposed shot and then I only learn afterwards that HDR was used to achieve it - rather than a shot that 'looks' like HDR.
 
Trev Rich said:
You dont see your photography as an art???
Click to expand...

Not necessarily. I look at photography and art as different things. Some would call anything they do art but I disagree. There is a reason there are different names for each.

I could call what I do for a living an art, but hey ho, doesn't make it true.
 
Considering most people nowadays use all manor of software to manipulate their images, I think we have to acept that HDR, is just another tool in the process.
Have seen some stunning images with HDR, therefore I must say I am a fan of it.
 
dinners said:
For what it's worth - my view was that I like it when I see a well exposed shot and then I only learn afterwards that HDR was used to achieve it - rather than a shot that 'looks' like HDR.
Click to expand...

:agree: Hit the nail on the head there.
 
Trev Rich said:
Darkroom photography is a chemical / light process, not photography.. etc etc... the resulting images are a chemical / light creation, not a photograph...


Did you ever work in a darkroom? Cos I did and the amount of manipulating was unreal.... dont like the sky? change it... to light? burn it in...
It's photography, an artists impression.
Click to expand...



darkroom yes with B&W prints or choosing velvia for landscape rather than portrait work etc for the colours but thats not the same as HDR. HDR is a way of digitally creating an image it ain't photography
 
Either way HDR is going to have its supporters and bashers. For me, if a photo is being passed as normal when HDR has been used then its wrong. I quite like some of the effects HDR produces as long as it's subtle but some of the overdone stuff makes me cringe ;)

Al
 
I'm in the "it depends how far it's cooked" camp. I use a subtle HDR when it's appropriate, but draw the line at crazy cartoonish shots...unless I'm trying to produce something that's more fantasy than photography.
 
I like it when it's done with subtlety and refinement... it has the potential to make an amazing image.

On the other hand, i hate when images look crudely processed. Haloing and that strange grey look are not good IMO.
 
I'll come back to what I always come back to, the subject matter is the most important aspect of any photo for me. I have a photography book at home by Sammy Davis Jnr, most of the photos were taken back stage and at parties, there is shutter blur, some are out of focus and some underexposed. But they are a fantastic insight in Hollywood in the 50s and make for a great book with some stunning photos.

I think the issue I have had with many HDR photos is that often the subject matter is secondary to the special effects. I'm always looking for the emotion and energy in photography, I want to look at a photo and wish I was there, part of that scene, next to those people, driving those cars and I haven't seen that in a HDR shot for a long time.
 
HDR is a great tool - but a poor crutch. I've seen it used as both.
 
Im quite a fan of HDR-including those REALLY overcooked ones.
At the end of the day-If the image looks nice and pleases the eye-Then thats just fine by me.
Shame every single HDR i ever tried came out truly awful :D
 
HDR is great if you cant tell its HDR sadly the majority of it is rubbish and is so overdone that the results just scream out over processed,there is someone on here who's name I forget is a genius with HDR and whose shots just look like beautifully exposed images
 
HDR, tonemapping, exposure blending, darkroom printing - whatever process you use to get your image into a final state, the old adage that you can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear still applies.

I've been lambasted for my blunt approach to critique in the past but you see it all the time, someone applying the latest processing technique to a shot that should never have been taken in the first place, and with HDR there seems to be a glut of terrible judgements that could have been avoided with a keener eye and a bit more training...
 
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