I shoot w/the K10D. At times I get a picture result as per the example below. What causes it? This was one of 5 photos taken to do HDR. Speed of this one was 1/3000. TIA for the help.
I am guessing you mean the banding? It is a dark image and it looks like the image has been brightened, possibly automatically by photoshop or picasa or similar? This will bring out noise and artifacts in the dark areas. For HDR the 'dark' images like this one are the ones used to get the highlight detail and it looks like overkill in the bracketing as well, you highlights are rendered as midtones or less here, so I suspect you could not use this one and still create a successful hdr?
Banding by your chosen software package trying to boost exposure to get a decently exposed image.
This is an inappropriate adjustment your software is doing for the purposes of HDR, hence the ugly result here.
Just set all your HDR captures to 0 exposure adjustment and keep all other parameters constant between your 5 shots, then save them all to JPEG as is, then combine them together in an HDR image using your HDR software.
just a thought...if you are trying to get a nice HDR photograph of the scene you are shooting there in your example, it will look somewhat ghosty due to the constant movement of the waves. I would suggest composing a "fake" HDR from 1 single RAW shot...should be nice and sharp and still have that expanded dynamic range look when it's all said and done.