Great Dynamic Range from M43

[Chris Noble]

I'll have to give it a shot with the in-camera HDR. I've tried handheld exposure bracketing for HDR from the D750 and processing in LR and the results weren't that great. But when I did HDR with a tripod it was excellent.

No need to do in-camera HDR. Shutter-speed bracketing + PP HDR gives you more control.

Make sure you carefully pick the exposures for the HDR processing. The fewer the better, 2 EV or more between them, and the least-exposed should be as bright as possible without saturating anywhere.

Hope that helps!

 

[Plagen]

That is plenty of DR. Thanks for sharing! Some of the responses you received only reinforce the perception that this a gear site not one built for sharing artistic expression.

Yup, my thoughts precisely. It's up to OP whether this is how the image should look or not, he's only displaying how far a file can be pushed, don't remember seeing him ask for C&C from the 'experts'

OP said "...No worries - I enjoy the feedback..."

While your response , and some other responses as well, do not give any useful feedback to OP.

 

[Yannis1976]

No worries - I enjoy the feedback. It's an interesting shot - pretty much pitch black in the tunnel and no light other than what comes in and what you bring. Then you have a sunny 3pm day on the other end. Pretty much the worst of all worlds shot.

Its not a bad shot at all! I think it just needs another pp approach, so instead of lifting up the shadows and lowering the highlights, I would transform it to BW and emphasize on the black and white areas more.

 

[Cheshire-Chris]

I'll have to give it a shot with the in-camera HDR. I've tried handheld exposure bracketing for HDR from the D750 and processing in LR and the results weren't that great. But when I did HDR with a tripod it was excellent.

No need to do in-camera HDR. Shutter-speed bracketing + PP HDR gives you more control.

Make sure you carefully pick the exposures for the HDR processing. The fewer the better, 2 EV or more between them, and the least-exposed should be as bright as possible without saturating anywhere.

Hope that helps!

Have I been doing HDR wrongly all these years, Chris? I’ve always worked on the principle that the “middle” exposure of the HDR set should be metered for the brightest parts of the image, and then go up and down from that baseline. I generally use the Olympus “5F 2ev” HDR bracketing mode which shoots a sequence of 5 shots with 2ev bracketing, ie: normal, -2ev, -4ev, +2ev, +4ev. Am I wrong to start the sequence with the camera set to meter on the brightest parts of the scene?

Cheers,

Chris

 

[sfft]

Negative feedback can well be useful as well. As far to my understanding OP has a different view/perception of dynamic range. Pushing the highlights and shadows sliders to the limit is not related to dynamic range. The sample image OP defined as a great dynamic range image is below acceptable standards for some of the members.

I also think the same way. Let me be in an effort to spare photographer's function, that image can only be an example of bad dynamic range from a M43 camera.

While your response , and some other responses as well, do not give any useful feedback to OP.

 

[Chris Noble]

I'll have to give it a shot with the in-camera HDR. I've tried handheld exposure bracketing for HDR from the D750 and processing in LR and the results weren't that great. But when I did HDR with a tripod it was excellent.

No need to do in-camera HDR. Shutter-speed bracketing + PP HDR gives you more control.

Make sure you carefully pick the exposures for the HDR processing. The fewer the better, 2 EV or more between them, and the least-exposed should be as bright as possible without saturating anywhere.

Hope that helps!

Have I been doing HDR wrongly all these years, Chris? I’ve always worked on the principle that the “middle” exposure of the HDR set should be metered for the brightest parts of the image, and then go up and down from that baseline. I generally use the Olympus “5F 2ev” HDR bracketing mode which shoots a sequence of 5 shots with 2ev bracketing, ie: normal, -2ev, -4ev, +2ev, +4ev. Am I wrong to start the sequence with the camera set to meter on the brightest parts of the scene?

Cheers,

Chris

If you are bracketing to choose the best exposure among many, bracket up and down around what you think is the "best" exposure. This applies to JPG and Raw. The technique that you describe. Then pick the optimal one.

If you are bracketing to construct an HDR image from a sequence of Raw files, bracket like I suggest. The purpose of the sequence is to increase the exposure for the shadows, starting from the "base" exposure; no need to attenuate the highlights (if they are not saturated).

 

[EarthQuake]

It does look a little "plasticy" but other than that what's not pretty? I think it has somewhat of a painting-like quality to it.

Here's my take:

The highlights are clipped and gray, reducing the contrast to a point where it looks very unnatural. Unnatural can be good and even interesting, but this is not the case here. More specifically, the highlights are so dark here that it really messes with the brain, we expect to see the bright light at the end of the tunnel be... well, bright. When it's roughly the same value as the shadows, it just looks wrong.

The shadows are pushed up too far as well, to the point where the interesting gradiation in the shadows is removed. As a specific example, how the reflections on the road fade into the deep shadows is a lovely detail in the original shot, but the shadows are pushed up so high that it's lost. How the road fades to pure black is a great detail that helps to lead the viewer's eyes to the point of interest as well. The effectiveness of this element is reduced due to the processing.

Essentially, you're trading lighting interest for textural interest, and it's not an effective or worthwhile trade in this case. The processing of highlights and shadows removes much of what was interesting (the contrast between light and dark an the subtleties in the dark ranges), killing the mood and feeling this image originally had.

When it comes to HDR tone-mapping like this, stripping out the lighting detail, so you're left with only color and texture, is a common error that many make when first experimenting with this style of processing. Light and shadow is such an important, fundamental element of a successful image, so it's a shame to see it discarded.

I think I understand what you mean or what you were attempting in terms of a "painting-like" effect. Most good painters certainly know how to manipulate the dynamic range of a scene in their paintings to capture the feel of the light within the limitations of the range of colors that can be produced with oil paints, but this effect is typically much more subtle than what you've done here.

I would guess that if you simply move the highlight and shadow sliders back by about 50%, it would significantly improve the image. Anyway, that is my opinion, no disrespect intended.

 

[GodSpeaks]

[No message]

 

[JJoyce4699]

Think what you could have done if you shot this with your D750...

Took the M-10iii to an abandoned tunnel and came away with this shot, which with a little PP through DxO it turned out great. I was able to grab a lot of shadow detail and IMHO it's a great picture.

This was RAW, straight out of the camera, exposed more or less for the daylight.


Straight out of the Camera


After DxO

--
- JJ

 

[itguy08]

Think what you could have done if you shot this with your D750...

I don't know that ~2 stops more of DR would have helped a whole lot. I've shot both side by side and the extra DR of the D750 is there but not the deal breaker you'd think.

 

[itguy08]

I do appreciate the feedback and realize that my PP skills do need improvement.

 

[itguy08]

The OP did say that he thought his own picture was "great", and others disagreed, giving reasons. Do you think the OP's intention in posting his photo was to not get opinions on it?

My intention was definitely to get opinions and I don't have an issue with them. I thought it was an interesting picture and something drew me in to it. I still think it is a great picture but I need some work on the PP process to get it better.

 

[itguy08]

The few times I've tried handheld with the Nikon, the results in Lightroom were not that great. Seemed to have a fair amount of ghosting and maybe I had too much coffee that day.

When I've tried it on a tripod the results are excellent.

I'll have to try all the mentioned techniques.

 

[mostlyboringphotog]

M43 does not have any more DR than other formats. DR is function of full well capacity and ADC bit depth and most modern cameras, the ADC bit depth (and ADC noise) is the limiting factor for DR.

What you are seeing is the limitation of the DR of the display device. The display device has no where near the DR of camera/sensor.

Therefore, you needed to compress the shadow and high light to display within the DR of the display.

 

[JJoyce4699]

Think what you could have done if you shot this with your D750...

I don't know that ~2 stops more of DR would have helped a whole lot. I've shot both side by side and the extra DR of the D750 is there but not the deal breaker you'd think.

Would not look look like a painting.