[Adam]

Thanks, that's great, Ill have to try it out as I use JPG HDR often. Seems this is a pretty unique feature as I don't think there is another camera on the market which saves HRD raw.

Indeed, there isn't. It's definitely a nice feature, but it will eat through your SD card in no time if you shoot too many.

Adam
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[Stagnant]

Recently I attempted shooting HDR indoors. I had exposure metering mode set to spot and via custom settings I joined AF and AE points. I focused on a window. The resulting RAW files were not any different than I would shoot them without HDR mode. The resulting OOC JPG files on the other hand, turned out to be excellent. I tried opening RAW files in SilkyPix, Lightroom and DxO - the default rendering is the same.

[Stagnant]

OOC JPG


SilkyPix



DxO

Here is the RAW file

[jup]

I mentioned that too in darktable. Seems like RAW processors just display 1st image in the file.

But the cool thing is you can develop HDR shot in the camera and change HDR settings! Obviously you cannot change the EV bracketing value, but you can switch between hdr off, auto, 1-3 and even turn auto alignment off in PP. So to find out which HDR settings you like, just develop one image with all the different ones and see for yourself. Love it!

edit: That also proves that all the data is in the RAW file.

[MJSfoto1956]

not sure what setting you have used for this image, but it is clearly significantly underexposed (I have been using DxO for over 7 years now on a variety of Canon, Nikon, Panasonic, and Pentax cameras and my images NEVER come in this dark unless they are underexposed). Notwithstanding, it took me just two simple clicks to retrieve the shadow detail in this image using DxO -- it's specialty is shadow detail btw. Here is a link to your PEF --> DxO --> JPEG image (converted). No Photoshop.



http://www.haywood-sullivan.com/download/IMGP1753_DxO.jpg

Michael

[MJSfoto1956]

ah, I see. This is a Pentax combo raw file. Yes, it appears that DxO only opened just the first embedded file (which presumably is the darker of the three). But it did so elegantly.

Michael

[jup]

ah, I see. This is a Pentax combo raw file. Yes, it appears that DxO only opened just the first embedded file (which presumably is the darker of the three). But it did so elegantly.

Michael

Yeah. I think that's what most RAW converters does - they just open first image which is shot at -2EV. But since the in camera RAW processor can process HDR RAW images so nicely, I think it's just matter of time before it finds its way into DxO and others.

[MJSfoto1956]

I'm not liking the "halos" around the frames of the windows -- I would rate this example of in-camera HDR as "meh"

Michael

[Stagnant]

MJSfoto1956, I know that it is perfectly possible to process this raw file to retrieve shadow details. I did some post processing in DxO and was quite satisfied with the result. For that file I used "no correction" preset, to show what the raw files without any post processing looks like.
Speaking about image being underexposed, this is due to the fact that I used spot metering to fit the highlights from the window into DR.

[skyer]

Yeah. I think that's what most RAW converters does - they just open first image which is shot at -2EV. But since the in camera RAW processor can process HDR RAW images so nicely, I think it's just matter of time before it finds its way into DxO and others.

I think that there won't be any 3rd party software that is able to handle K-3's HDR raw-files properly. Do you wonder why I think so? It's just because Pentax Digital Camera Utility can't handle them too!
When you select an HDR raw in PDCU and go to Laboratory module, PDCU will also let you edit only a one file of the 3 combined raw-files in a single big HDR raw file.
At first, I was so excited of that feature (HDR raw) but now I just don't get the Ricoh's approach.

[Stagnant]

I think that there won't be any 3rd party software that is able to handle K-3's HDR raw-files properly. Do you wonder why I think so? It's just because Pentax Digital Camera Utility can't handle them too!
When you select an HDR raw in PDCU and go to Laboratory module, PDCU will also let you edit only a one file of the 3 combined raw-files in a single big HDR raw file.
At first, I was so excited of that feature (HDR raw) but now I just don't get the Ricoh's approach.

It reminds me of a story with M AWB. At this point (after the first firmware upgrade), when you develop RAW with M AWB, you will see minimal differences. But OOC JPG files still have a noticeble difference in colours. None of the converters (PDCU, Lightroom, DxO, Silkypix) at my disposal, even after updates, were able to properly develop M AWB DNG RAWs from firmware 1.0.
Ricoh/Pentax created a camera that is too capable wasting a certain part of it's potential due to the lack of support by the rest of the world.

[Arne Bo]

I tried in camera HDR as well, but only got one "normal" raw pic in lightroom. jpeg made a significant difference between normal and hdr. I don´t have photoshop or any other programm to make my own HDR with bracketed shots so hopefully there will be a solution in the future.
I don´t know if i like the HDR look, but some of the jpegs were promising. Would be nice to use the "easy" way with in camera HDR to explore this field of photography.

[sundr]

Remember there are two stages to HDR processing. The first is merging the multiple exposures into a single image. The second is tonemapping. This is arranging the tones in the merged image into a visible range that approximates the abilities of our senses or how ever we want to push those tones. HDR1,2,3 are essentially tonemapping algorithms.

When I've merged multiple exposures for HDR in Photomatix, the program allows one to save the untonemapped image. These images can look completely black or almost all white or almost normal.

[sundr]

Just to clarify. I don't think think the untonemapped images from Photomatix are the same as the HDR RAW files out of the camera. The Photomatix files are RGB/32 bit files. The reason that they look strange is that the screen isn't able to display the correct tones without mapping. If I convert them to 16 or 8 bit in photoshop they look normal.

I played around with the HDR RAW a little. I found that I was able to open them up directly into Potomatix and tone map them. They gave a bit more to work with than if I were to tonemap a regular single image. Photomatix applies a RAW conversion before opening so I don't know if any data is getting lost. I also think they give more to work with in Adobi Camera RAW.

Not something I would do all the time, but, may be useful on occasion.

[IchabodCrane]

It reminds me of a story with M AWB. At this point (after the first firmware upgrade), when you develop RAW with M AWB, you will see minimal differences. But OOC JPG files still have a noticeble difference in colours. None of the converters (PDCU, Lightroom, DxO, Silkypix) at my disposal, even after updates, were able to properly develop M AWB DNG RAWs from firmware 1.0.
Ricoh/Pentax created a camera that is too capable wasting a certain part of it's potential due to the lack of support by the rest of the world.

A RAW file is just that... "raw". Maybe Pentax/Ricoh have yet to tell anyone how to properly decode things like mulit-AWB and, probably, HDR RAW files. Their in-camera JPEG engine is the only thing that can so far.