Questions on my HDR Trial

I am beginning to experiment with HDR images, but I don't know what I am doing wrong. I went out yesterday to capture images I could test, but they all have a lot of noise and aren't very clear.

I set my AEB, shot in RAW, and used continuous shooting. When I uploaded them and began using the Enfuse plug-in for lightroom, the pictures didn't look any different and they were very noisy. Also, this may be a silly question, but it saved them as .cr2 and it has never done that before. Is that part of the problem?

Any advice? What programs do you use and what am I doing wrong? I would appreciate any feedback.

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Jessica Morgan

Jessica,
First question - what camera are you using.

CR2 is the RAW format for Canon cameras. Have you shot RAW before? What EV settings did you set AEB to? +/- 2EV is good to start with. Maybe what you are seeing as noise is actually a misalignment between shots. Were you hand holding or using a tripod? If hand holding, what shutter speeds did you get for the various exposures? For HDR with my T1i I set to Av mode and select an aperture that gives me the depth of field I want and also decent shutter speeds at the different EVs. Keep at it, it will work for you.

Steve W.

I am using a T2i and shot them hand held. I always shoot in RAW, I am not sure why it just started saving them like this. My exposure was set at - + 2 ev, but shot in CA mode. I will have to try it in Aperture mode. What program should I use to merge the images? I have Lightroom, should I buy a separate program or use the Enfuse plug in? Thank you for answering so quickly!
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Jessica Morgan

JessicaMorgan said:

I am using a T2i and shot them hand held. I always shoot in RAW, I am not sure why it just started saving them like this.

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Interesting - all my RAW shots come as CR2. Wonder if the program you use ignores the extension. If not, what extension is shown.

JessicaMorgan said:

My exposure was set at - + 2 ev, but shot in CA mode. I will have to try it in Aperture mode. What program should I use to merge the images? I have Lightroom, should I buy a separate program or use the Enfuse plug in? Thank you for answering so quickly!

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I am not sure any AUTO mode is the best for HDR. With aperature mode all the shots will have the same depth of field and should produce the sharpest HDR. I don't have Lightroom so I can't comment on it. I use Dynamic Photo-HDR that seems to work OK for me. You can download a free trial at: http://www.mediachance.com/hdri/index.html

The trial version puts a logo along the bottom of the frame, but you can check out how it works as no functions are locked out.
Try again in Aperature mode and keep me informed on your progress.

Steve W.

Thank you! And how odd that it just switched to it now. Usually it converts and saves as a .jpeg. Thank you for the advice, I will try it in aperture mode and see if that program works any better.
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Jessica Morgan

JessicaMorgan said:

Thank you! And how odd that it just switched to it now. Usually it converts and saves as a .jpeg.

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Are you perhaps setup in the camera to take RAW+JPEG? The camera will not convert RAW to JPEG. If so, possibly the program you use to open files (Lightroom?) isn't seeing the CR2 files and is opening the jpeg version. Don't know how Lightroom works - I use CS5. Does it use ACR (Adobe Camera Raw) and have a version that can open T2i RAW files? Or are you using another program? Dynamic Photo-HDR can use either RAW or JPEG.

Steve W.

It would make life easier if you use a tripod and lock your mirror. Any wobble will cause detail degradation when you merge your images. Try using a remote timer or setting the cameras delay timer. Oloneo is still free and does very well with HDR. You might find downloading it worth your while.
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Fish are evil

I will try it with a tripod as well as looking into that program. Thank you.
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Jessica Morgan

Honestly, I am not sure. I set it to just take RAW on the camera, at least that's what I thought. I am fine with it also creating a .jpeg if that is what Lightroom is doing. I just wasn't sure if it was part of the problem since I just noticed that they were saved differently than usual.
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Jessica Morgan

I have been trying Photomatix and for some reason no matter what program I use there is a lot of noise. I am not sure what I am doing wrong. I changed to using the aperture mode with a tripod and it still seems very grainy. How do you set up and take the images that you merge?
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Jessica Morgan

JessicaMorgan said:

I have been trying Photomatix and for some reason no matter what program I use there is a lot of noise. I am not sure what I am doing wrong. I changed to using the aperture mode with a tripod and it still seems very grainy. How do you set up and take the images that you merge?

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Jessica,

Your setup seems OK - it is what I have done. What shutter speeds did your AEB shots have? Hopefuly not too slow. I have just started replaying with HDR since I only got my T1i about a month ago - did some with my Panasonic FZ-18 before but it was limited to +/- 1EV. The weather here in the east (Philly) hasn't been very good for picture taking, especially shots for HDR. Next few days are going to be better so may take a trip to Valley Forge Park for some test shots. Nice covered bridge over there that might work with HDR.

Are your individual shots making up the HDR clean and sharp? Are you seeing the "noise" when you merge in the HDR program. I know with Dynamic Photo-HDR the preview is much magnified so it is not as clear a picture. I don't have Photomatrix so not sure how it displays the merge.

As a test - download Oloneo (it is free right now) and install. It comes with some sample images to play with. I used those sample images in DPHDR, Oloneo and PS CS5 and in all three cases I got very clean results. Hopefully we can get this working for you before you become too discouraged. If all else fails, maybe you could email three shots (0EV, -2EV and +2EV or such) and I could see if the noise is there.

Steve W.

I just tried it with .jpeg and it worked beautifully. Not sure why it is working with my jpegs and not the RAW images.

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Jessica Morgan

are you making sure you have your iso set at 100??? HDR processing tends to bring out the noise so make sure you have as little as possible to start with. plus if you are using a tripod then the longer shutter speeds should not matter. Also as a few people said you MUST shoot in AV (with fixed iso) as you want the camera to change only the shutter speed for the 3 exposures. Best bet is to set AEB at -2 +2 and set the camera to a 3 second timer (it will take all three in a burst). This was you will minimise camera movement between shots.
If you try all this and you still have lots of noise something wierd is going on

Got some pictures to test today. Set AEB +/- 2EV and used Av mode at f=8.0. Took both RAW and JPEG at both ISO 200 and 100. Tested the resultant sets of 3 shots in Oloneo, DPHDR and PS CS5. The HDR result was essentially the same for both the RAW and JPEG shots. I saw no real noise in any of the HDR files. I did shoot my shots hand held so there was a slight fuzziness in the merged pictures, but nothing I call noise. So your source of noise is interesting.

Steve W.