Originally posted by Peter Zack It's a great shot Stephen. I couldn't tell it was an HDR and the winds must have been calm as there appears to be very little movement in the leaves. Why 7 shots and not the typical 3?
Peter (and dantuyhoa),
Thanks. Strangely enough it was rather windy as a cool front was pushing through and it was quite cloudy too with a few breaks of sunlight and blue sky. But within the gorge and hemlocks the wind was somewhat subdued.
Most of the images taken that day were about 10-30 seconds (I was having fun with about 12 new Hoya ND filters I had just bought) and the mild movement in the images doesn't bother me in this type of shot.
Why seven? Well, the more images that you thrown into the pot... up to about
nine in total, the
better dynamic range you can get out of the image. I tried it with three but I couldn't put any punch into the image. Sometimes I use the auto bracket on the K10D but I find that 5 images doesn't really allow me to get the realistic look I want on most HDR shots. On the CS2 HDR range scale (if that is what it is) this image showed roughly 11 or 12 ranges versus the 6-8 I usually get with 3-5 images.
But, I am not practiced in HDR and have never delved too deeply into it, but I really do like it's potential... both artistically and realistically. Someone more skilled than I might well have been able to knock this off with less images.
I am however, working hard at trying to perfect my panorama skills. And it is a struggle at times
I made a 24 (8X3) image of this fall on the same day using the 31 ltd. But it is a struggle to get the dynamic range out of the single exposure images in a high dynamic range setting like this.
Thanks
Stephen