Night Shots - HDR to prevent blown highlights?

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v16ben

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No idea which forum to post this in so please move if this isn't the place to be :lol:

I enjoy taking night shots in the busy city where I live. Usually stuff like this which was a 2 second single exposure using a Canon 550D:


Gongeuptap Rotary. by v15ben, on Flickr

I like the shot, but the blown white lights really annoy me. I've tried editing them out, but I've seen on another forum a suggestion to use HDR for this kid of shot instead. Have 3 different exposures to get all aspects of the shot correctly exposed, then mix the 3 together to get a better overall shot.

My problem is I've never done HDR! I hate the over-processed daytime HDR shots you often see, but hadn't really considered that it might work for the between 2 and 5 second night shots I do.

My question is how would I go about shooting with HDR on my Canon camera in a situation like the shot above? I don't even know where to start. Also in terms of post-processing (combining the shots) do I need Photoshop or could another program like Photomatix or even Photoscape which I normally use to edit shots actually do the job?

Yours, confused photographer!
:thumbs:
 
Before you try HDR go into the menu's on your camera and find the custom functions (it should be the last spanner icon) scroll through and find "image highlight tone priority" and enable it, this will result in a + symbol showing next to your ISO setting and will restrict the expanded ISO range but it will help preserve the highlights when you take a shot thus helping to prevent them "blowing".

Other than that go to the second camera icon menu, select EXP comp/AEB, then hold down the +/- button on the back of the camera and rotate the front dial to set up automatic exposure bracketing, you could start with 1 stop either side and then try different settings until you get things how you like, then combine the shots in photoshop to either create an HDR image or add them all together manually then alter the layers to give the effect you desire.

PS, photoshop is much better for doing this kind of thing and can automatically create HDR images from several shots.
 
Thanks for the ideas, guys.
I'll certainly play with Image Highlight Tone Priority next time I'm out taking night shots.
I'll also look up night HDR tutes on YouTube/online.
I do kinda agree though that the big digital adverts in the photo I posted are so bright compared to everything else, that it may be difficult to prevent them being blown completely!
 
You might not like what you think is HDR.. but a lot of what is badged as HDR doesn't reflect on the capabilities of the technique - more the processing that's been chosen, and frequently the misunderstanding of what HDR is by the person producing the image.

Over-saturated cartoon HDR is not the way it was meant to be..

HDR will still blow the direct light sources, but should contain them within better defined edges.

If you have the original image as a raw file, have you tried processing it with Lightroom 4 (not previous versions)? The changes made with LR4 from LR3 have vastly improved the recovery abilities at both ends of the histogram. What's blown will still be blown, but some of the flare/glare could be minimised.
 
Night shots such as that has an extreme dynamic range, variable exposures is the solution to covering such a wide range, then merging the correctly exposed bits. That is what HDR (High Dynamic Range) is all about, or at least it should be, not the heavily processed false looks that are so prevalent.
 
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