I am a pro shooter and here is why I am so excited for my K-5 to get here tomorrow

BobRad · 10-22-2010, 07:44 AM

Alex,

I second Mark Langille's comments:

Quote:

Alex, you have done some of the first/few HDR images that I can honestly say DO NOT look unrealistic. I am not saying all of them are realistic looking, and your implementations are definitely some of the best ones I've seen!!!

From your descriptions of how you produce these exceptional photos, it sounds like you spend a lot of time at the computer. Can you give us an idea of how many minutes or, more likely, hours, you spend on a typical HDR photo?

Thanks,
Bob

benisona · 10-22-2010, 09:22 AM - **2 Likes**

Originally posted by BobRad

Alex,

I second Mark Langille's comments:

From your descriptions of how you produce these exceptional photos, it sounds like you spend a lot of time at the computer. Can you give us an idea of how many minutes or, more likely, hours, you spend on a typical HDR photo?

Thanks,
Bob

It totally depends on the shot complexity (how many moving components there are, and if the shots are handheld or not how much dynamic range there is ect), but I would say anywhere from 5min, to an hour or more. The more I like the composition and lighting of a shot the more time I will take on it to really make every little detail sparkle. I must say this with a caveat though. I noticed a lot of folks around the corridors of these forums that are big RAW advocates. I myself hardly, if ever, shoot RAW, and this is mainly because I find it slow and cumbersome, and in addition, I don't have the patience to individually tweak all the RAW settings for each shot (I know you can batch, but I'm never really happy with that either, plus I shoot thousands of images a week and the space saving more than make up for the pixel peeping minute differences IMHO). The reason I bring this up is that while I will spend a bit of time perfecting my digital "art" (HDRI) I typically try to get the best JPEG out of the camera to start and then go from there, because in the end I am rather impatient.

On this note, since I am stuck inside so far and haven't been able to get out and open the throttle on my k-5, last night I laid around and got totally familiar with the menus, setup and played with all the features. I must say that I am floored by the new ability to save 5 user modes, and to be honest, don't know how I lived without it before.

As I already said, I have two of the user modes saved for high and low bracketing (check my old post for more detail), but last night I set one for low light B&W and one for low light B&W + vignette. Now, normally I would never use any incamera filters of conversions ( I loooove silver efex for B&W for example), but since I was bored last night I was just shooting my girlfriend and her cats, in basically zero light (a tv and a neon light in the room). One thing I noticed was that the really high ISO shots are totally usable and somewhat beautiful especially in B&W. They remind me of super grainy high speed film, and the in-camera filters can be combined and customized to your liking, so that you can get great stuff in-camera. In combination I can now flip to one of my B&W user modes and snap bar, and candids in super low light and have beautiful, usable images right out of camera, at the flip of a switch I am back to any shooting mode I want. I didn't think I would be so impressed with the software of the k-5, but it is proving to be a big selling point. You can essentially have 5 different special purpose cameras built into your K-5 at any moments notice.

Here is an example of a 1600 ISO shot only lit by tv light in my" B&W_vignette" user mode (all done in camera). (not a ful size image, so you can see it for the overall feeling)

and here is one at 6400. really amazing..

Hopefully today I will get out and do some intensive HDR work with the new K-5, at the very least I will do some handheld to test the speed advantage the K-5 has...

Raybo · 10-22-2010, 04:24 PM

Another Jpeg shooter..........you're my new hero benisona!

Ray

ewig · 10-22-2010, 06:28 PM

@benisona : i like your flickr site and already add you as contact in gmail, wa talk later...anyway your work inspiring me to back to HDR, is it true than entry level canikon doesnt have multi bracketing ?? cause i think D40 has it ...

Rory · 10-22-2010, 07:23 PM

You guys aren't reading what he's said. They have it, but it caps at 3 exposures. You are leaving a lot on the table as far as DR is concerned with that.

garyk · 10-22-2010, 07:47 PM

Those are really some pro shots. but I have to disagree on the one second shooting at 5-7 frames per second. Again static shots are great with Pentax. Buffer is so bad you are the only one i know that likes it.
Good shooting

Rory · 10-22-2010, 07:48 PM

Originally posted by garyk

Those are really some pro shots. but I have to disagree on the one second shooting at 5-7 frames per second. Again static shots are great with Pentax. Buffer is so bad you are the only one i know that likes it.
Good shooting

He shoots jpg. Much bigger buffer.

benisona · 10-22-2010, 08:00 PM

Originally posted by Rory

You guys aren't reading what he's said. They have it, but it caps at 3 exposures. You are leaving a lot on the table as far as DR is concerned with that.

Check out this table to get all the AEB figures for all cameras... Don't just pay attention to the total AB covered, but also the ev per step. As you will see, a lot of the nikons can do cover 8 AEB but can onlyy do it in 1 step increments, which means you have to use 9, 1 ev step exposures. When shooting handheld this is a big disadvantage. Pentax has it just right, as you ideally want 2 ev stops per bracket....

Autobracketing

benisona · 10-22-2010, 08:02 PM

Originally posted by Rory

He shoots jpg. Much bigger buffer.

Ya, at full size jpeg I get like 20-30, and if I go down to 3 star quality (best) then it is almost limitless....

garyk · 10-22-2010, 09:28 PM

I have been waiting for this thread. Very good info. I have been really knocking Pentax but I may have to pony up and try this new k-5.

philbaum · 10-22-2010, 10:42 PM

Originally posted by benisona

Ya, at full size jpeg I get like 20-30, and if I go down to 3 star quality (best) then it is almost limitless....

I'm glad to see you've been so successful with HDR. I remember seeing your first stadium picture at least a year ago - thats cool its benefited you so much.

The question i've got for you is this. Was that an HDR you did of your girlfriend's face/cat in front of the TV? Secondly, does the rapid frame rate/use of jpg allow you to take pictures with humans in them? I mean obviously it does, but this is momentous. The bugaboo with HDR has been dealing wtih motion. How do you deal with slight human motion for a central human figure?

(i just have to move up to a K5, no question :-))

Christine Tham · 10-22-2010, 11:11 PM

Thank you very much benisona - your posts have opened my eyes (!) to the wonderful world of HDR and inspired me to take my first HDR picture with my trusty K10D and exposure bracketing.

Original (at EV 0):

Processed using HDR Pro in Photoshop CS5 (5 shots from EV -2 to EV +2):

Obviously, I am not as good as you are, but hoping to improve :-)

JoshRead · 10-22-2010, 11:57 PM

Your HDR shots are fantastic! Very inspirational to me; I'd like to go out and do some shots like that soon.

benisona · 10-23-2010, 09:28 AM

Originally posted by philbaum

The question i've got for you is this. Was that an HDR you did of your girlfriend's face/cat in front of the TV? Secondly, does the rapid frame rate/use of jpg allow you to take pictures with humans in them? I mean obviously it does, but this is momentous. The bugaboo with HDR has been dealing wtih motion. How do you deal with slight human motion for a central human figure?

The pic of my girlfriend in front of the tv is not an HDR, it's just a great lowlight jpeg (actually all the processing in that shot was done incamera). In fact last night I was playing around and the new k-5 is like having night vision goggles. I can take a picture in an almost entirely dark room and although pretty noisy, it looks like the lights are on in the exposure (not blurred and handheld). Spectacular.

As for fast HDR. Handheld HDR takes a bit more skill, and the faster you can bracket your shots the better. I take a tripod a lot of places, but I don't like being restricted from HDR when I don't have one. There are a lot of factors that go into shooting handheld, and the K-5 has the best of all worlds (ISO,shutter,bracketing,ect). As for moving subjects, it is definitely possible, to use them, to a certain extent, and more depending on how creative you get with photoshop. Honestly, IMHO, next to composition, lighting and DOF, post processing skills are the single most important skill for improving the end results of your photography. I'm sure I will get a lot of flack for that, and if you don't have good images to start no post process will save them, but thats just how I feel. Post processing, similar to dark room work of old, is an art form and I feel that there is too much dislike and disgust from "traditional" photographers, because they feel threatened by it in some way. I feel that you must embrace and excel at all aspects of imaging if you truly want to have the most creative freedom possible.... My 2cents.

benisona · 10-23-2010, 09:31 AM - **1 Like**

Originally posted by Christine Tham

Processed using HDR Pro in Photoshop CS5 (5 shots from EV -2 to EV +2):

Christine,
You should really try bracketing 5 stops at 2 ev per bracket, instead of 1. I can tell just by looking at the sky in your shot that you left a lot of dynamic range on the table (ideally you want every highlight and lowlight detail covered by your exposures, and your sky is very clipped). But nice first attempt.

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10-22-2010, 07:44 AM	#61
BobRad Forum Member Join Date: Oct 2009 Location: Maryland Posts: 80	Alex, I second Mark Langille's comments: Quote: Alex, you have done some of the first/few HDR images that I can honestly say DO NOT look unrealistic. I am not saying all of them are realistic looking, and your implementations are definitely some of the best ones I've seen!!! From your descriptions of how you produce these exceptional photos, it sounds like you spend a lot of time at the computer. Can you give us an idea of how many minutes or, more likely, hours, you spend on a typical HDR photo? Thanks, Bob

10-22-2010, 09:22 AM - 2 Likes	#62
benisona Forum Member Join Date: Sep 2009 Posts: 91 Original Poster	Originally posted by BobRad Alex, I second Mark Langille's comments: From your descriptions of how you produce these exceptional photos, it sounds like you spend a lot of time at the computer. Can you give us an idea of how many minutes or, more likely, hours, you spend on a typical HDR photo? Thanks, Bob It totally depends on the shot complexity (how many moving components there are, and if the shots are handheld or not how much dynamic range there is ect), but I would say anywhere from 5min, to an hour or more. The more I like the composition and lighting of a shot the more time I will take on it to really make every little detail sparkle. I must say this with a caveat though. I noticed a lot of folks around the corridors of these forums that are big RAW advocates. I myself hardly, if ever, shoot RAW, and this is mainly because I find it slow and cumbersome, and in addition, I don't have the patience to individually tweak all the RAW settings for each shot (I know you can batch, but I'm never really happy with that either, plus I shoot thousands of images a week and the space saving more than make up for the pixel peeping minute differences IMHO). The reason I bring this up is that while I will spend a bit of time perfecting my digital "art" (HDRI) I typically try to get the best JPEG out of the camera to start and then go from there, because in the end I am rather impatient. On this note, since I am stuck inside so far and haven't been able to get out and open the throttle on my k-5, last night I laid around and got totally familiar with the menus, setup and played with all the features. I must say that I am floored by the new ability to save 5 user modes, and to be honest, don't know how I lived without it before. As I already said, I have two of the user modes saved for high and low bracketing (check my old post for more detail), but last night I set one for low light B&W and one for low light B&W + vignette. Now, normally I would never use any incamera filters of conversions ( I loooove silver efex for B&W for example), but since I was bored last night I was just shooting my girlfriend and her cats, in basically zero light (a tv and a neon light in the room). One thing I noticed was that the really high ISO shots are totally usable and somewhat beautiful especially in B&W. They remind me of super grainy high speed film, and the in-camera filters can be combined and customized to your liking, so that you can get great stuff in-camera. In combination I can now flip to one of my B&W user modes and snap bar, and candids in super low light and have beautiful, usable images right out of camera, at the flip of a switch I am back to any shooting mode I want. I didn't think I would be so impressed with the software of the k-5, but it is proving to be a big selling point. You can essentially have 5 different special purpose cameras built into your K-5 at any moments notice. Here is an example of a 1600 ISO shot only lit by tv light in my" B&W_vignette" user mode (all done in camera). (not a ful size image, so you can see it for the overall feeling) and here is one at 6400. really amazing.. Hopefully today I will get out and do some intensive HDR work with the new K-5, at the very least I will do some handheld to test the speed advantage the K-5 has...

10-22-2010, 04:24 PM	#63
Raybo Veteran Member Join Date: Dec 2007 Posts: 872	Another Jpeg shooter..........you're my new hero benisona! Ray

10-22-2010, 06:28 PM	#64
ewig Veteran Member Join Date: Jan 2010 Photos: Albums Posts: 312	@benisona : i like your flickr site and already add you as contact in gmail, wa talk later...anyway your work inspiring me to back to HDR, is it true than entry level canikon doesnt have multi bracketing ?? cause i think D40 has it ...

10-22-2010, 07:23 PM	#65
Rory Inactive Account Join Date: Jul 2010 Location: Chicago Photos: Gallery Posts: 672	You guys aren't reading what he's said. They have it, but it caps at 3 exposures. You are leaving a lot on the table as far as DR is concerned with that.

10-22-2010, 07:47 PM	#66
garyk Inactive Account Join Date: Feb 2010 Photos: Gallery Posts: 488	Those are really some pro shots. but I have to disagree on the one second shooting at 5-7 frames per second. Again static shots are great with Pentax. Buffer is so bad you are the only one i know that likes it. Good shooting

10-22-2010, 07:48 PM	#67
Rory Inactive Account Join Date: Jul 2010 Location: Chicago Photos: Gallery Posts: 672	Originally posted by garyk Those are really some pro shots. but I have to disagree on the one second shooting at 5-7 frames per second. Again static shots are great with Pentax. Buffer is so bad you are the only one i know that likes it. Good shooting He shoots jpg. Much bigger buffer.

10-22-2010, 08:00 PM	#68
benisona Forum Member Join Date: Sep 2009 Posts: 91 Original Poster	Originally posted by Rory You guys aren't reading what he's said. They have it, but it caps at 3 exposures. You are leaving a lot on the table as far as DR is concerned with that. Check out this table to get all the AEB figures for all cameras... Don't just pay attention to the total AB covered, but also the ev per step. As you will see, a lot of the nikons can do cover 8 AEB but can onlyy do it in 1 step increments, which means you have to use 9, 1 ev step exposures. When shooting handheld this is a big disadvantage. Pentax has it just right, as you ideally want 2 ev stops per bracket.... Autobracketing

10-22-2010, 08:02 PM	#69
benisona Forum Member Join Date: Sep 2009 Posts: 91 Original Poster	Originally posted by Rory He shoots jpg. Much bigger buffer. Ya, at full size jpeg I get like 20-30, and if I go down to 3 star quality (best) then it is almost limitless....

10-22-2010, 09:28 PM	#70
garyk Inactive Account Join Date: Feb 2010 Photos: Gallery Posts: 488	I have been waiting for this thread. Very good info. I have been really knocking Pentax but I may have to pony up and try this new k-5.

10-22-2010, 10:42 PM	#71
philbaum Veteran Member Join Date: Oct 2007 Location: Port Townsend, Washington State, USA Posts: 3,659	Originally posted by benisona Ya, at full size jpeg I get like 20-30, and if I go down to 3 star quality (best) then it is almost limitless.... I'm glad to see you've been so successful with HDR. I remember seeing your first stadium picture at least a year ago - thats cool its benefited you so much. The question i've got for you is this. Was that an HDR you did of your girlfriend's face/cat in front of the TV? Secondly, does the rapid frame rate/use of jpg allow you to take pictures with humans in them? I mean obviously it does, but this is momentous. The bugaboo with HDR has been dealing wtih motion. How do you deal with slight human motion for a central human figure? (i just have to move up to a K5, no question :-))

10-22-2010, 11:11 PM	#72
Christine Tham Veteran Member Join Date: Nov 2008 Location: Sydney, Australia Photos: Gallery Posts: 2,269	Thank you very much benisona - your posts have opened my eyes (!) to the wonderful world of HDR and inspired me to take my first HDR picture with my trusty K10D and exposure bracketing. Original (at EV 0): Processed using HDR Pro in Photoshop CS5 (5 shots from EV -2 to EV +2): Obviously, I am not as good as you are, but hoping to improve :-)

10-22-2010, 11:57 PM	#73
JoshRead Junior Member Join Date: Jul 2010 Location: West Virginia Posts: 40	Your HDR shots are fantastic! Very inspirational to me; I'd like to go out and do some shots like that soon.

10-23-2010, 09:28 AM	#74
benisona Forum Member Join Date: Sep 2009 Posts: 91 Original Poster	Originally posted by philbaum The question i've got for you is this. Was that an HDR you did of your girlfriend's face/cat in front of the TV? Secondly, does the rapid frame rate/use of jpg allow you to take pictures with humans in them? I mean obviously it does, but this is momentous. The bugaboo with HDR has been dealing wtih motion. How do you deal with slight human motion for a central human figure? The pic of my girlfriend in front of the tv is not an HDR, it's just a great lowlight jpeg (actually all the processing in that shot was done incamera). In fact last night I was playing around and the new k-5 is like having night vision goggles. I can take a picture in an almost entirely dark room and although pretty noisy, it looks like the lights are on in the exposure (not blurred and handheld). Spectacular. As for fast HDR. Handheld HDR takes a bit more skill, and the faster you can bracket your shots the better. I take a tripod a lot of places, but I don't like being restricted from HDR when I don't have one. There are a lot of factors that go into shooting handheld, and the K-5 has the best of all worlds (ISO,shutter,bracketing,ect). As for moving subjects, it is definitely possible, to use them, to a certain extent, and more depending on how creative you get with photoshop. Honestly, IMHO, next to composition, lighting and DOF, post processing skills are the single most important skill for improving the end results of your photography. I'm sure I will get a lot of flack for that, and if you don't have good images to start no post process will save them, but thats just how I feel. Post processing, similar to dark room work of old, is an art form and I feel that there is too much dislike and disgust from "traditional" photographers, because they feel threatened by it in some way. I feel that you must embrace and excel at all aspects of imaging if you truly want to have the most creative freedom possible.... My 2cents.

10-23-2010, 09:31 AM - 1 Like	#75
benisona Forum Member Join Date: Sep 2009 Posts: 91 Original Poster	Originally posted by Christine Tham Processed using HDR Pro in Photoshop CS5 (5 shots from EV -2 to EV +2): Christine, You should really try bracketing 5 stops at 2 ev per bracket, instead of 1. I can tell just by looking at the sky in your shot that you left a lot of dynamic range on the table (ideally you want every highlight and lowlight detail covered by your exposures, and your sky is very clipped). But nice first attempt.