Photos First attempt at HDR

This is the local church next to where i live in London in HDR glory. I didnt go for the ultra intense look some HDR shots go for. I wanted something that looked almost normal.

It was taken with the D40 kits lens on my D80 - not bad imo.

What i learnt from today: don't shoot a scene that has moving objects in HDR!

 

Nicely done, the tower really pops out. A pitty off the clouds that moved.

 

Church looks great!

 

It must have been really windy or you need to learn how to use auto-exposure bracketing which speeds things up tremendously.

Other than the freaky moving bits, I like it.

 

I think the church itself looks great though not my personal style (a little toooo hdr). However, I think you have a bit of photoshopping to do with it - the clone/heal brush could do a lot with this image to at least fix the most OBVIOUS stuff like the clouds and the tree branch in the upper right.

However, I think there's a bit of technique you could use for this. You theoretically could have used the HDR from one single RAW for the sky, and used the combined HDRs of the church. Either way (heal of HDR combos) there are ways to fix the image

 

Hmmm, not sure on this one. I think the composition is quite interesting, that I like (although the lamppost ruins it a bit for me). I'm just not sure that amount of HDR is necessary in this picture. It just looks very unnatural, and (IMO of course) not in a good way.

 

I am not a photographer so I can't comment on technique and things like that, but the picture does look pretty cool. The HDR and the angle give it a look of something that wouldn't look out of place in a FPS PC game. Very cool pic imo.

 

Thanks for the comments all - very constructive which is what i like about you guys.

I did use auto bracketing but as i didnt have a remote i was using the 2s self timer to make sure there was absolutely no tripod shake. I used Photomatrix pro that tried to heal the files but it obviously the movement was too extreme. I will try the idea of using different files in PS to get around this and maybe turn the HDR down somewhat.

The lights were rather in the way - im going to be perfectly honest here. This was taken from the pavement in front of the church. Its on a pretty busy road and i must say i felt quite conspicuous with a sodding great tripod so i didnt really feel like walking in front of the church (more exposed) to take the pic. I call it 'beginner's fear of looking like a c*ck whilst taking pics"

Cyp.

 

Good symmetry effect. Not to keen on the HDRing I think it's been overdone making the contrasts fall apart.

 

There's a lot of haloing going on around the spire and some funky stuff going on with the clouds; the HDR is pretty OTT imho. The lamppost really detracts from what would have made a pretty nice symmetrical shot though, although I realise you can't really do much about that. Other than that, the upwards angle works pretty well.

 

I think it looks pretty cool for an art gallery or something... it just doesn't look realistic nor HDR to me. In my opinion, HDR should just give you more room with contrast, show the highlights and shadows with all their detail... this looks psychedelic to me, as if the colors were warped... Don't get me wrong, I think the shot is very nice, it just doesn't look natural at all... then again, it's only my opinion.

 

30 mins with Photomatrix and PS and this is the Redux revision.

I turned down the strength of the HDR and colour saturation and chopped the background of one of the original files. I then used the magic wand to select the sky and clouds, layered it and dragged it across to the HDR shot. I had to use the rubber stamp tool to fix the edges of where this joined - is that normal or could i have done anything else in PS to make the cut more accurate?




I must admit i am a bit of a sucker when it comes to liking the 'fakeness' of the original HDR shot.

 

i'm no photoshop expert, but this looks SO much better in my opinion, much more natural... the only (constructive) criticism that i can do is that the clouds in the left are darker than the ones in the right side, which takes away from the realism... otherwise, i like it much better now, good work!! (wait until i get my new Xsi and i start experimenting with exposure bracketing, you'll have a laugh at my disastrous HDR attempts!! lol)

 

In my humble opinion, this looks SO much better. Like, there's almost no comparison.

I know you liked the HDR, and above all you need to be true to YOUR liking - it's your art. But as a public photo, this looks much more like a PHOTO.

The cloning looks very good, by the way. There are ways you can not have to do that rubber stamp trick, but I'll tell you those over IM.

Overall, MUCH much much much better. Though the lamp-post still isn't optimal, I would say this is a shot to be proud of

 

absolutely agreed. this is why some of the best photographers are famous for doing crazy stuff - it's what they like and nobody thought it would work... guess what, it does!! if u like a certain shot, don't let anybody change your mind. i know I don't, and i'll never win the potm, lol, but i love my pics!!

 

Final PS tweak:

Adding a polarizing effect by using an B&W adjustment layer with a red filter effect on the sky.

 

Any links at how you achieved HDR pics?

 

There are loads on Flikr if you search for HDR.
I also read this one for more detail: http://www.vanilladays.com/hdr-guide/

 

Much better

 

here's a veeeeeeery explanatory page on how to do hdrs: cambridge colors