[BeginnerDave]

Hello everyone, I decided to try applying some HDR for the first time to try popping out the lake's colors as they stood out to me in person (and in comparison, looking back at the original picture now, it does look pretty dull compared to the actual nature [horrible pun] of the scene). I took this picture on my third day of practice with the K-5. Unfortunately, I didn't have my tripod, so I did the best I could with the camera handheld.

Everyone's criticisms and thoughts are always welcome.

Attached Images

 

---

Last edited by BeginnerDave; 02-12-2013 at 01:56 AM.

[johnyates]

I would certainly encourage you to experiment with HDR, but I suggest you reconsider your subject matter. The main benefit from HDR is to allow you to capture a scene that has a luminance range beyond which your sensor can capture. The scene above has a very small luminance range. Your sample above resembles a normal exposure with the saturation pumped up post processing.

Look for a scene that is partially lit by the sun but also has important areas in deep shadow. Something like an interior with a window view where you'd like to have detail show both inside and outside.

Or a sunset where you'd like good detail in the foreground without burning up the sky.

Stuff like that.

[wildman]

I suggest you reconsider...

I essentially agree.

[demp10]

Before you dive big time into HDR, consider shooting in RAW format and then in Post Processing lighten up the darker parts/shadows of the image (especially the ones that look totally black) and darken the highlights (e.g. clouds that look totally white). If the exposure was done correctly (or was bracketed so you have one or two images more or less correct), you’ll be amazed on how much details you can recover from a single image.

Your K-5 records pixels in 14-bit color depth while your monitor (at best) can display 8-bit images. The goal is to redistribute the “cropped” 6 bits properly to get the most of the image. HDR basically does the same using multiple images at different exposures. In addition to extra effort to take the images and go through the HDR process, you run into image registration issues and motion blur (if wind was blowing), both degrading the image quality.

[BeginnerDave]

Ah, thank you, everyone, for your advice on choosing more wisely when to try out HDR; I'll definitely be working on single stills most of the time, but didn't realize how unnatural this picture looked (it just goes to show that a person's his own worst critic). I'll definitely be careful about when to use it.

And here's the original picture at the median exposure value. Would you say that it's overall a better picture than its HDR version, in this case?

[grainbelt]

I'd contend that your last image is simply overexposed - it may be the median image in your bracketed capture, but it is at least half a stop overexposed, to my eye.

This is also, coincidentally, precisely the type of scene that would benefit from a polarizing filter to really knock down the bright sky. That alone would do more for your image than any post processing or HDR.

[bezuidar]

Getting there! Thanks for sharing!