LensBeginner
Leading Member
(This is not a plug, I'm not from Photomatix's staff)
Well, I must say that I'm quite new to Photography (with capital P), but I've been taking photos (not snapshots, I know the difference) at least since three years.
I've been using a Nokia N95 that, if you ask me, has fantastic IQ.
Then after three years of intensive use the display died, the battery was in poor conditions and the repair cost exceeded the cost of a new phone.
I bought a Samsung Galaxy S.
IQ was terrible compared to the Nokia, but I found a way to enhance it.
I fiddled with it a little and tried one of those hdr softwares for mobiles.
Obviously I downloaded a trial of Photomatix and threw away all the hdr pictures generated on the phone.
Photomatix alignment & deghosting are so good they allow me to shoot hand-held (!) with a 6 seconds delay between the first photo and the third (!!!).
Plus, doing that I recover an incredible amount of detail (there was a thread about SNR here on dpreview, somewhere...), and I could expose perfectly in almost every conceivable situation (except when the light was so abysmal that I got three identical photos because exposure time and ISO limits were reached and the phone could no more...), even facades in the shade with sunlit sky on a summer day and the likes. HDR for me was the mean to get natural-looking photos out of a crappy phone.
Just thought that the info could be useful for all those who want to get better photos with "the camera they have" when they don't carry one (a real one, that is).
Then I bought a reflex.
I bought a used K100D Super because I have many old manual lenses (which are a joy to use, now I can tell!).
It has exposure bracketing (while, eg. some entry-level Nikon don't).
I shot a couple of photos with bracketing and loaded in Photomatix, expecting a miracle to happen.
Nothing happened.
I fiddled with the controls for a couple of hours (I've been using the trial a lot, the trial period is almost over and I know my way around it...) but couldn't find a way to remove that kind of "yellow-old-photo" look and a certain graininess due to excessive contrast.
Source were jpgs (I can't bracket with raw... well I could, but I don't want to wast 30Megs on a single image ;-) ), so I had to switch every time from raw to jpg and from single shot to bracketing.
Bottom line? Now that it isn't necessary anymore to obtain passable results I only shot raw and totally forget about HDR. PEF files give me all the headroom I need in the highlights provided that the photo was exposed at least decently.
Just like that, my 2c worth of information from actual practice.
Best regards.
Well, I must say that I'm quite new to Photography (with capital P), but I've been taking photos (not snapshots, I know the difference) at least since three years.
I've been using a Nokia N95 that, if you ask me, has fantastic IQ.
Then after three years of intensive use the display died, the battery was in poor conditions and the repair cost exceeded the cost of a new phone.
I bought a Samsung Galaxy S.
IQ was terrible compared to the Nokia, but I found a way to enhance it.
I fiddled with it a little and tried one of those hdr softwares for mobiles.
Obviously I downloaded a trial of Photomatix and threw away all the hdr pictures generated on the phone.
Photomatix alignment & deghosting are so good they allow me to shoot hand-held (!) with a 6 seconds delay between the first photo and the third (!!!).
Plus, doing that I recover an incredible amount of detail (there was a thread about SNR here on dpreview, somewhere...), and I could expose perfectly in almost every conceivable situation (except when the light was so abysmal that I got three identical photos because exposure time and ISO limits were reached and the phone could no more...), even facades in the shade with sunlit sky on a summer day and the likes. HDR for me was the mean to get natural-looking photos out of a crappy phone.
Just thought that the info could be useful for all those who want to get better photos with "the camera they have" when they don't carry one (a real one, that is).
Then I bought a reflex.
I bought a used K100D Super because I have many old manual lenses (which are a joy to use, now I can tell!).
It has exposure bracketing (while, eg. some entry-level Nikon don't).
I shot a couple of photos with bracketing and loaded in Photomatix, expecting a miracle to happen.
Nothing happened.
I fiddled with the controls for a couple of hours (I've been using the trial a lot, the trial period is almost over and I know my way around it...) but couldn't find a way to remove that kind of "yellow-old-photo" look and a certain graininess due to excessive contrast.
Source were jpgs (I can't bracket with raw... well I could, but I don't want to wast 30Megs on a single image ;-) ), so I had to switch every time from raw to jpg and from single shot to bracketing.
Bottom line? Now that it isn't necessary anymore to obtain passable results I only shot raw and totally forget about HDR. PEF files give me all the headroom I need in the highlights provided that the photo was exposed at least decently.
Just like that, my 2c worth of information from actual practice.
Best regards.
- sensor size makes a real difference, as you can now see. I owned a K100d for a while, it took great shots; the only downer I recall is that the shutter 'clack' is pretty loud. It will serve you very well under most circumstances.