High dynamic range is hurting my eyes

[smokeyjoe]

Yes. That's what I meant as well.

HDR used in the 'proper' sense is just an expansion of the tonal range.

It's evil heteronym twin is when everything is halo'ed, compressed, and over saturated.

Ugghhh......
--
http://www.flickr.com/photos/-smokeyjoe/

 

[SpiralTower]

Here you go, a LDR image (I guess) for a change. So I´m not afraid of having the blacks and whites in my image ;-)



And still I pushed the borders over the edge in Photoshop, to get the trees black and the graphic effect for its final purpose ... Maybe glowing branches would´ve rather contributed to the eerie atmosphere, no?

 

[tko]

I can't document this, but supposedly a long time ago, when people used to listen to music by placing large needles on top of spinning disks and listen to the music come out of metal horns attached to the needles, some bright team invented the amplifier and loudspeaker and the first true Hi-Fi system was invented. However, they ran into a problem. When they played the system for a group of consumers (or whatever they were called back then) nobody liked the new, improved sound. Didn't sound a bit like the sound they were used to getting out of their 78's. There were low tones, high tones, dynamic range, it was too loud, all this stuff that they weren't used to and ithurt their ears.

So, I'm always glad the people are experimenting, and always glad to keep an open mind. Is some HDR over the top? Sure, just like anything else.

But really, the bottom line is: if you took a photo, and had a choice of blown out skies and black shadows, or a photo w/details in the sky or shadows, which one would you pick? If you'd rather have the details, then the fact that HDR is better is established, and we're just haggling over the details.

 

[GURL]

--
Georges Lagarde http://www.panorama-numerique.com

 

[craig w garland]

Smokeyjoe; That's exactly how I see it too-- as a useful tool to extend DR, but not to the point of "overdone".

Cheers. Craig
--
'Shoot freely and edit ruthlessly' me, November 2002-- after purchase of E-1.
Equipment in profile.

 

[Barry Fitzgerald]

Hopefully this HDR thing will fall by the wayside soon.

With you on this one..

Its pretty yuck mostly..though sometimes it can be good. As ever, people tear the hell out of it, and go way OTT.

--



I am not the 'Ghost Hunter', nor am I the Irish actor in the 'Quiet Man' ;-)

 

[filthy6]

If I could just weigh in here...

I just returned from a week down the windy west coast of Victoria and one evening thought I'd try my hand at HDR, with a view to stitching the raw files together in CS3. The result is below. I originally wanted just the tree against the sky, which I'd tried to take before on a single exposure with no satisfactory result. The photo I've used here is a combination of four exposures, from -2 to +1 exposure.

The cow happened along as I set up and moved its head during the sequence. Some might not like the ghostly second head or line of light but I think it makes the photo. HDR using stitched photos is just another tool. Use it to your advantage or don't use it. I really like this photo which I couldn't have gotten any other way, so it has worked for me here. Which doesn't mean I'll use it all the time but there is now another weapon in the arsenal for when the occasion calls.



e3, 7-14
Cheers, Philip
--
http://www.zenfolio.com/filthy6/

 

[amalric]

In the case of landscape, especially when having too much contrast, HDR or pseudo HDR combines the information the eye sees in different moments by adapting to the various intensity of light.

Perhaps when shooting portraits a more subjective choice is at work. Deeeper or lighter shadows usually are an interpretation of mood. But here I find it is a matter of conveying the maximum information about a location in one picture, without much interpretation:



Am.
--
Photostream: http://www.flickr.com/photos/7689141@N06/

 

[garycane]

Some seem to miss the point of the comments correctly done HDR is a HUGE asset to digital processing, But I have to agree that with some images rather than improve the dynamic range of the image it has been destroyed making the image look rather flat with everything exposed to exactly the same level, I guess a bit like the sharpening thing, over sharpening used to be the biggest problem with many images posted on this and other forums.

All that said I guess some of the flatter less dynamic images are due to the learning curve, I am learning to use HDR and the curve to achieve the results gained by some on this forum is quite steep, and there have been some stunning pictures posted. What I for one try to achieve is an image with good highlights and shadows as I saw the image with my eye at the time of capture rather than an image restricted by the dynamics of the sensor. But hey what do I know I am probably missing the point also, beauty in the eye of the beholder and all that.
--
Gary