The Grand Canyon goes HDR

Some may recall I was asking about shooting my way through Northern Arizona, Southern Utah and through Colorado a few weeks ago on my cross country move. Here is the first of a number of fantastic shots I captured during the three day cross country moving expedition. (I hope to post some others soon.)

Grand Canyon goes HDR



Nikon D300, ISO 100, Nikkor 14/24 F2.8 @ 14mm / F5.6, 7 shot bracket from 1/20th to 1/640th, combine in Photomatix 3. A series of 7 exposures were also captured with the sun/sky blocked in order to easily Photoshop excess lens flares.

C&C are very welcome.

Hey mate!

great photo you have here! I like the effect of the star burst from the small aputure!

have you edited this on photo shop? my reason for asking this is, the mountains in the background look a funny colour and look very drawn/painted, not photographed.

anyway tis a great and amazing photo, it would look great on any wall in the world!
--
Shane
http://australianbushwalking.fotopic.net
Adjust your monitor

The HDR was made from a total of 14 exposures, 7 with and 7 without the sky blocked off to reduce flare and maximize contrast. That was built and tweaked in Photomatix 3 which does sometimes appear fake in areas. I then tweaked color and contrast in Photoshop, straightened the horizon slightly and fixed the lens flares using pieces of the second set of images processed the same way as the first set. The mountains are in fact the way they were photographed otherwise.

On a side note, it was a quite smokey day in the canyons. Their was a planned burn of some surrounding forest area to prevent a much larger unplanned fire at a later date. Their was a good bit of smoke lingering in the distance, even down into the canyon in some areas which 'smothers' the details some. The smoke is also evident in the sky, it is the dark streak on the right hand side just above the horizon. The mountains just below that area appear blue because they are in shadow and nearest the sun they appear very warm and orange due to the sunlight making the smoke glow with the setting sun.

PhotoArtKC said:

C&C are very welcome.

Click to expand...

Maybe you like the unrealistic look that can be achieved by HDR. I don't. I guess it's purely a matter of taste, but the shot doesn't work for me for that reason. The composition and subject look very nice, though.

BG

It looks very dark to me.

PhotoArtKC said:

Some may recall I was asking about shooting my way through Northern
Arizona, Southern Utah and through Colorado a few weeks ago on my
cross country move. Here is the first of a number of fantastic shots
I captured during the three day cross country moving expedition. (I
hope to post some others soon.)

Nikon D300, ISO 100, Nikkor 14/24 F2.8 @ 14mm / F5.6, 7 shot bracket
from 1/20th to 1/640th, combine in Photomatix 3. A series of 7
exposures were also captured with the sun/sky blocked in order to
easily Photoshop excess lens flares.

C&C are very welcome.

Click to expand...

Not trying to be confrontational but if one want some sort of bizzare effect you have done it, but if one is after a photographic look---sorry, it misses by a mile.

I really don't see where folks think it's good photography to kill all contrast, all shadows, and have a mis colored flat photo--sorry--ron s.
--
Keeping it sane in an insane world is an inconvenience at an inconvenient time!!
http://www.pbase.com/ron9ron

It's nice as art job. A bit artificious though

g

Amazing. Just beautiful. Well done. I like it a lot. It has a good "feel" to it.
--
CQ

For me it does not make sense to have it so well lit up on this side of the mountain thanks to the HDR. The sun is on the other side and it looks weird without any shadows on this side.

Just my thought.

--
Rickard Hansson
Sweden

I'm a little surprised at the number of "nay" votes for your image here. Usually people really like the HDR effect and I don't. This time it appears that a number of viewers think you've overdone it and the HDR doesn't work. Yet, I really like it. I guess for me, I'm far more bothered by "good" HDR that (almost) successfully hides the fact that it's HDR. The problem is that HDR images rarely truly succeed completely and, therefore, there's a subconscious awareness of the "wrongness." Here, on the other hand, nobody would think of this as an unprocessed photo. Its supersaturated color, hyperreality and stylization announces itself. It makes an artistic statement and I'm fine with that. Well done, all around.

I'm still not a huge fan of HDR but it's a technique that has it's place.
--
My photos: http://www.pbase.com/imageiseverything/root

Congrats
--
Ray Soares

See my pictures at http://www.pbase.com/raysoares

I'm with a lot of the others - it's WAY over saturated and unrealistic for me - now, if that was the look you're going for (almost becoming a painting) then you've succeeded. But if you were going for a well crafted photograph, you're a far ways off - and I'd suggest dial way back on the saturation and be realistic in terms of the sharpening too - it simply looks over processed to my eyes.

-m

PhotoArtKC said:

Some may recall I was asking about shooting my way through Northern
Arizona, Southern Utah and through Colorado a few weeks ago on my
cross country move. Here is the first of a number of fantastic shots
I captured during the three day cross country moving expedition. (I
hope to post some others soon.)

Click to expand...

Usually when people call their own work "fantastic", I get doubtful, but in this case, I agree. It's a fantastic shot. It's art, and it works.

PhotoArtKC said:

Grand Canyon goes HDR



Nikon D300, ISO 100, Nikkor 14/24 F2.8 @ 14mm / F5.6, 7 shot bracket
from 1/20th to 1/640th, combine in Photomatix 3. A series of 7
exposures were also captured with the sun/sky blocked in order to
easily Photoshop excess lens flares.

C&C are very welcome.

Click to expand...

--
http://www.pbase.com/gsaf

http://www.dphoto.us/forumphotos/showgallery.php/cat/500/ppuser/2371

Nice feel to the photograph. Some may not like it but I do. As for CC, I would have toned down the mountain side under the sun a little..this is probably why most would think it's too unrealistic as we would expect not to capture this on film.

Again, nice work

--
http://ksingh.zenfolio.com

Clearly we are in the minority here.

In any case, to explain my vision better:

HDR can be used for a number of effects, including capture of detail in areas that would otherwise be in shadow as shown here. Of course it doesn't appear to be a straight photograph, that is nearly the entire point. It is virtually impossible to capture a reasonably good dynamic range across an image when shooting directly into the sun like this with digital (slightly less so with film). Thus the reason I used HDR to create the image.

I agree, it is saturated. (probably more so on some peoples displays, it looks nice to me on my wide gamut calibrated LaCie 324) But again, i'm already bending "real" by going HDR so a little more saturation within reason doesn't hurt IMO. It is a touch dark. In fact, it was easily that dark to the naked eye when the photos were taken. Someone mentioned it was flat and lacked contrast? I'm not seeing that. Perhaps I forgot to convert it out of aRGB when I saved the small version or something and it doesn't display properly to others due to that. (I use Firefox 3 which can properly display images in non-sRGB profiles assuming your screen has the capability to display such colors.) Yes, I over-sharpened it slightly for the web size image. The full size file is quite a bit more realistic in that regard.

I think people misunderstand HDR, it's uses and how to create with it. I've done a number of images that look completely natural yet are in fact many bracketed images. This Grand Canyon shot bends true photographic to a different level, some clearly dislike it, some find it interesting and artistic in its own way. Such is the same with all art forms.

Nice experiment, I'm not a big fan of HDR though. So it's not your photo, I just don't like the "HDR look"

Looks good to me
--
Dez

http://photos.dezmix.com

You should see what the image started out as. You would be shocked.

The "bizzare" effect is combining multiple exposures into a single "High Dynamic Range" image with many times greater range than even film can capture. The technique is still quite odd and unfamiliar to many people. And clearly non-typical photos are what you get when using HDR, sometimes perhaps closer to reality than you could capture any other way.

Here is a slightly more "photographic" use for HDR with a very un-fake look.

9 exposures (+4EV, Base, -4EV) Combine to give light and detail in a room that was completely lit by the window in the photograph. Any single photo would show a very blown out window and properly exposed room or a properly exposed window and a blackened room.



Color, saturation and overall light appear (at least to me on my screen) exactly as they were viewing the room with the naked eye.

And of course I was looking for a "wow that looks impossible" look. No, it's not entirely photo-realistic. But what is? Besides, a photograph can't capture what the eye can see. Is my image closer to what my eye could see? Perhaps, perhaps not. Either way, I like it, other people like it and some don't. I don't like a great deal of art I see in museums. Does that make them less worthy? I think not. And sorry, I didn't mean to hash out on your thread personally. I just felt it needed explaining for some who don't understand HDR or my reasoning for using it in this case.

ron_9 said:

Not trying to be confrontational but if one want some sort of bizzare
effect you have done it, but if one is after a photographic
look---sorry, it misses by a mile.
I really don't see where folks think it's good photography to kill
all contrast, all shadows, and have a mis colored flat
photo--sorry--ron s.
--
Keeping it sane in an insane world is an inconvenience at an
inconvenient time!!
http://www.pbase.com/ron9ron

Click to expand...

--
http://modified.zenfolio.com/

I find that interior shot to look realistic, probably not possible to do without HDR, but it looks alot like what the naked eye would see.

I'm into HDR in a big way, but I hate the deviantArt HDR stuff where its all buggered up with no light smoothing and silly settings overall. A good HDR shouldnt be perceived as HDR at all.

A totally overdone HDR that really screams is cool too, but then its more a piece of art than a photography. All to their own. The grand canyon shot looks great in that regard. Really like it.

Here's a couple of mine... im no expert.



View from my front porch, abit too much light in the foreground (roof/fence).



('fake' hdr, processed from one raw just to pull out abit more details from the shadow/highlight area)..
--
Eirik

PhotoArtKC said:

I think people misunderstand HDR, it's uses and how to create with
it. I've done a number of images that look completely natural yet are
in fact many bracketed images. This Grand Canyon shot bends true
photographic to a different level, some clearly dislike it, some find
it interesting and artistic in its own way. Such is the same with all
art forms.

Click to expand...

True.

On a side note - I don't see a lack of contrast. Too much of it in the shadow areas, rather. I don't know why the other poster saw a lack of it...

BG