Anya and I made another trip out to Cuyahoga Valley National Park last week in hopes of getting some good fall foliage photographs, but sadly the trees out there were still green for the most part. I did take a number of shots at the Blue Hen Falls and put together a couple HDR images. In general, I've never been a huge fan of HDR because they usually have a very clear processed look to them, but I still give it a shot from time to time.

Take a look at this attempt (mouseover the images to display the larger version) and place your vote for which version you like best.

Single Shot
HDR with PS:CS5
HDR with PS:CS5 + HDR Efex

Technical Data: Canon EOS 7D, Canon EF-S 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 IS STM at 18mm, Various exposures at f/16. ISO 100. RAW processing in Adobe Camera Raw, HDR processing in Adobe Photoshop CS5 and Nik HDR Efex Pro.

- Bill

So on our trip to Niagara Falls, we only managed to stop at the falls the first night. It was cold (and the other days were colder with rain/snow/sleet), but I had the thought to try some HDR to see about getting a nice shot of the falls but maintaining the color from the lights.

The results are mediocre at best. In particular, the bottom right corner is screwed up in the shadows (and I don't know how to fix it), and it seems (at least with the green lights) the color has shifted a bit.... but being my first attempt, I figured I'd share just the same.

Technical Data: Canon EOS 7D, Canon EF-S 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 II at 22mm, 2.5, 1.3, 0.6, 1/6, 1/3 sec respectively at f/4. ISO 800. RAW processing in Adobe Camera RAW and HDR processing Adobe Photoshop CS5.

If you mouse over each smaller thumbnail, you will see the series of shots used to create the HDR image. Individually, you can see that no single shot could capture everything - either the lights on the falls would over expose or the shadow areas would just become fields of black.

Looking at it again really illustrates just how bad the HDR processing is, and I definitely think it warrants trying another processor to see if I can come up with better results... but for now, you get the idea.

- Bill

As promised many, many ages ago, I've finally processed that set of waterfall photos into an HDR image.

I used a freeware program called Picturenaut to produce the final HDR image. In the end, I like the image but wonder if the HDR was even worthwhile in this particular case (or given the range of exposures I used to built it).

After completing the HDR, here are my thoughts on the results:

• I should have cleaned up the scene some more - at this point, I find all the dead leaves distracting, and a nice clean rock and water scene would have been more pleasing.
• I need to pay more attention to the lens flares and water droplets on the front of the lens because they might not have been distracting in the original shots (and probably not even noticed on the LCD on the back of the camera), but they definitely are noticeable now.
• I should have selected a wider range of exposures to use for this kind of HDR set. Particularly, I should have explored the darker end of the set more - perhaps expanding down a further stop or two.
• I should have figured out what that spot in the middle of the frame was.

All in all, I am actually pretty pleased.

I've seen so many HDR images that have horrible halos around everything that they looked like you were looking at the scene through some crappy 3D vision glasses. As I'm sure you know by now, I am not a huge fan of post production work. I like to get the shot right once in the camera and leave it at that. I'm slowly coming around, but I still don't want to look at an image and tell it has been so overworked and couldn't possibly have come from a camera directly. It works for some folks, and sometimes it looks nice, but it just isn't for me.

Remember to stop back and check out the original post to get a bit of comparison, then drop me a comment and let me know what you think.

- Bill

Ok - hopefully I can keep my promise from my last post and provide something a bit more appealing today.

Not too long ago, I took a trip up to McConnell's Mill State Park. I really love going to this park, but honestly, I get mixed results with my photography there - I never know whether I'll come back with stuff I like, or a whole card worth of images to delete.

This trip, as I was driving there, I thought about what kind of photography I would like to do that day. Sometimes this works out and I manage to get exactly what I wanted, but more often than not I miss the mark altogether. Most days, I try to head out with no plan whatsoever and just capture whatever I can find. Both ways work, and I flip back and forth between them.

As I cruised up I79, listening to Lotus, I thought perhaps I should delve into HDR. And with that in mind, I decided to take multiple exposures of any shots I did.

Here's one set of results... (if you hover your mouse over one of the thumbnails, it will change the larger image, then you can slide along the row of thumbnails to see the progression in exposure - if it is the first time through, be patient as sometimes my server is a little slow and the image might take a moment to load).

Technical Data: Canon EOS 7D, Sigma 10-20mm f/4-5.6 EX DC HSM AF at 16mm, 1.3, 2, 3.2, 5.2, 8, 12, 21 sec respectively at f/28.1. ISO 200. Dolica AX620B100 tripod. No post production. McConnell's Mill State Park, Lawrence County, PA.

So for the most part, a lot of those images don't really work by themselves, but the hope is that I can eventually run these through some HDR processing and get a super image out of them.

If you're unfamiliar, HDR works by taking a set of differently exposed images and merging them into a single image with a much greater detail by including a high dynamic range of sensitivity from the darkest to lightest details. Our eyes naturally can see a much wider range in sensitivity to light than our cameras can, so using a post production process like this is the way around that limitation.

I'll be honest, I've never done any HDR work before, so hopefully this works and then I'll eventually share the final product here.

Thanks for stopping by, leave a comment and let me know what you think of these photos or any experience you have with HDR.

- Bill