HDR - The final countdown.
Discussion
We've been there many times, but I just realised HDR was done just as well in the 1950's
Maybe it's time we made two photography forums, one for photos, and one for HDR (I'm kidding of course), but really, in 20 years time, surely people will look back and wonder why we 'wondered' at HDR. It is a cartoon isn't it? A useful tool, but used to abstraction?
Don't get me wrong, I'm loving some of the HDR that is posted here, some fantastic images - but it's not what they saw is it!
The Landscape photo of the year really 'hurt':
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/in_pictures/8314105.stm
I mean, are the judges blind or just paid in advance? There have been dozens of photos on this forum in the past year that both did and didn't use HDR that are better landscapes than these... simply because they looked real, not like CGI. Get a grip guys, I've seen Tom & Jerry cartoons that have more realistic backdrops. (Number 5 is one of the worst photos I've ever seen)
Maybe it's the way forward. Perhaps photography is moving towards representational art - a half way house between photography and fine art?
Or maybe not, and it's a really quick way to impress people (until, most likely, HDR is incorporated into mobile phones).
I thought it worth another argument.
<<ducking for cover - bearing in mind that I use HDR - 5 frames - Thus:
...but is this not HDR as it was intended? To allow photographers to compensate for the inadequacies of stupid cameras and their inability to understand exposure? It's not a fab photo, much better ones have been posted in the last few days on the random thread... but it's honest?
Discuss (and I'm off down the pub).
Maybe it's time we made two photography forums, one for photos, and one for HDR (I'm kidding of course), but really, in 20 years time, surely people will look back and wonder why we 'wondered' at HDR. It is a cartoon isn't it? A useful tool, but used to abstraction?
Don't get me wrong, I'm loving some of the HDR that is posted here, some fantastic images - but it's not what they saw is it!
The Landscape photo of the year really 'hurt':
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/in_pictures/8314105.stm
I mean, are the judges blind or just paid in advance? There have been dozens of photos on this forum in the past year that both did and didn't use HDR that are better landscapes than these... simply because they looked real, not like CGI. Get a grip guys, I've seen Tom & Jerry cartoons that have more realistic backdrops. (Number 5 is one of the worst photos I've ever seen)
Maybe it's the way forward. Perhaps photography is moving towards representational art - a half way house between photography and fine art?
Or maybe not, and it's a really quick way to impress people (until, most likely, HDR is incorporated into mobile phones).
I thought it worth another argument.
<<ducking for cover - bearing in mind that I use HDR - 5 frames - Thus:
...but is this not HDR as it was intended? To allow photographers to compensate for the inadequacies of stupid cameras and their inability to understand exposure? It's not a fab photo, much better ones have been posted in the last few days on the random thread... but it's honest?
Discuss (and I'm off down the pub).
Edited by GetCarter on Wednesday 18th November 19:50
it can be done amazingly (as above) but even then its not a true depiction. Even when the 24bit (close to visual) sensors become widespread they will be very different in result to a HDR shot. HDR even when done subtley still looks not natural, what I am waiting for is a full 24 or 32 bit sensor which will be able to cope with a tonal range of at least 4 or 8ev. Bye bye grad filter, hello perfectly expose sky and ground.
I'm not a huge fan it must be said, but the subtler ones can work really well. What spoils some are the light halos you see around objects when the author has turned the wick up too much. It looks very much like the bad burning-in I used to see back in the B&W printing days 
But Steve has a point. We've been doing it for donkey's years, playing with exposure and contrast, variable-grade printing, dodging and burning...
I do it. This one is three exposures pulled out of a raw and overlaid in PS:
But Steve has a point. We've been doing it for donkey's years, playing with exposure and contrast, variable-grade printing, dodging and burning...
I do it. This one is three exposures pulled out of a raw and overlaid in PS:
stigmundfreud said:
it can be done amazingly (as above) but even then its not a true depiction. Even when the 24bit (close to visual) sensors become widespread they will be very different in result to a HDR shot. HDR even when done subtley still looks not natural, what I am waiting for is a full 24 or 32 bit sensor which will be able to cope with a tonal range of at least 4 or 8ev. Bye bye grad filter, hello perfectly expose sky and ground.
I disagree Stig, Steves pic looks truly "natural" to me. This one of mine was “rescued” with HDR due to the crap sky. Without the HDR (or ND grad I didn’t have with me) then the sky would have been pure white. 
paul911 said:
stigmundfreud said:
it can be done amazingly (as above) but even then its not a true depiction. Even when the 24bit (close to visual) sensors become widespread they will be very different in result to a HDR shot. HDR even when done subtley still looks not natural, what I am waiting for is a full 24 or 32 bit sensor which will be able to cope with a tonal range of at least 4 or 8ev. Bye bye grad filter, hello perfectly expose sky and ground.
I disagree Stig, Steves pic looks truly "natural" to me. This one of mine was “rescued” with HDR due to the crap sky. Without the HDR (or ND grad I didn’t have with me) then the sky would have been pure white. stigmundfreud said:
it can be done amazingly (as above) but even then its not a true depiction. Even when the 24bit (close to visual) sensors become widespread they will be very different in result to a HDR shot. HDR even when done subtlety still looks not natural, what I am waiting for is a full 24 or 32 bit sensor which will be able to cope with a tonal range of at least 4 or 8ev. Bye bye grad filter, hello perfectly expose sky and ground.
Yep... fantastic shot, but it SCREAMS HDR doesn't it? It's not a photographic representation, it's half photo, half computer generated image. Press 'the button' and it's sorted.I'm not complaining, or being down on such a great image. I'm saying that somewhere, sometime a line has to be drawn in the sand.
Do we want our view, our personal view of what we saw to be shared, or do we want a computer geek that lives in Photodex City's view? Maybe that's what we want. In which case, HRD good!
But I have a feeling that HDR will be *SO* last year (by about 2012)
IMHO - Top tip guys, save the RAW image and not the HDR JPG!
stigmundfreud said:
i have a feeling that teh whole scene will go two very distinct ways
processed
non-processed
by none I mean just the modern day versions of old tools, dodge, burn etc
Its the only way I can do it processed
non-processed
by none I mean just the modern day versions of old tools, dodge, burn etc
I have no idea on how to HDR and no inclination on how to learn
I will burn a sky 99% of the time and dodge a bit of this and that, thats as far as I know.
I just take it as an argument between 'photography' and 'art'. Mole's two images are good examples. The one of the digger in the field looks so obviously false, it's not the way anyone could have photographed it - it is, in my opionion, a good bit of art. His other one, the view on the lake/loch etc, is a photograph with some processing to assist it - no more or less than would have been achieved in a darkroom.
I don't like HDR that attempts to make a photograph look better than it actually was. The example of the bench from a couple of days ago looked nothing like the photographer would have seen the scene and also the processing wasn't enough to make it 'art'. Steve's image and even Paul's when I look at them make me think "there's been processing there" but they don't look out and out false and they retain the right to be called good photos.
The classic bit of HDR I can't stand is when you have very obvious light from one direction in a landscape yet the ground which naturally would be in shadow seems to have an amazing amount of light and colour (eg directly behind a wall).
So, it all comes down to - do I think it's a great photo or do I look at it as art. On the whole, I love photography and sometimes like the art.
I don't like HDR that attempts to make a photograph look better than it actually was. The example of the bench from a couple of days ago looked nothing like the photographer would have seen the scene and also the processing wasn't enough to make it 'art'. Steve's image and even Paul's when I look at them make me think "there's been processing there" but they don't look out and out false and they retain the right to be called good photos.
The classic bit of HDR I can't stand is when you have very obvious light from one direction in a landscape yet the ground which naturally would be in shadow seems to have an amazing amount of light and colour (eg directly behind a wall).
So, it all comes down to - do I think it's a great photo or do I look at it as art. On the whole, I love photography and sometimes like the art.
20 years ago we had the Cokin Star 4. Now we have HDR.
It depends whether the first thing you think is 'Great picture!' or 'HDR!'
The former is of course the best response; it depends how subtely the technique has been applied and how savvy (or photo-weary!) the viewer is.
I frequently use double processing and compositing to iron out dynamic range/exposure differences within a scene, but the objective is to achieve a realistic result.
Being harsh, if you have to plaster HDR onto a landscape to make it look arguably better, then that rather proves it wasn't really up to scratch in the first place. Perhaps that's the acid test of a landscape?
It depends whether the first thing you think is 'Great picture!' or 'HDR!'
The former is of course the best response; it depends how subtely the technique has been applied and how savvy (or photo-weary!) the viewer is.
I frequently use double processing and compositing to iron out dynamic range/exposure differences within a scene, but the objective is to achieve a realistic result.
Being harsh, if you have to plaster HDR onto a landscape to make it look arguably better, then that rather proves it wasn't really up to scratch in the first place. Perhaps that's the acid test of a landscape?
Edited by Simpo Two on Wednesday 18th November 22:10
I've only started doing it recently. For me it's good fun, and I do really like some of the effects possible. There are so many possible outputs with the likes of Photomatix, that it can be a bit of an art form IMO.
Non-photographers are far more impressed with my HDR pictures than most of the "natural" ones. What that says about me... Who knows
Non-photographers are far more impressed with my HDR pictures than most of the "natural" ones. What that says about me... Who knows
cirks said:
I just take it as an argument between 'photography' and 'art'. Mole's two images are good examples. The one of the digger in the field looks so obviously false, it's not the way anyone could have photographed it - it is, in my opionion, a good bit of art. His other one, the view on the lake/loch etc, is a photograph with some processing to assist it - no more or less than would have been achieved in a darkroom.
I don't like HDR that attempts to make a photograph look better than it actually was. The example of the bench from a couple of days ago looked nothing like the photographer would have seen the scene and also the processing wasn't enough to make it 'art'. Steve's image and even Paul's when I look at them make me think "there's been processing there" but they don't look out and out false and they retain the right to be called good photos.
The classic bit of HDR I can't stand is when you have very obvious light from one direction in a landscape yet the ground which naturally would be in shadow seems to have an amazing amount of light and colour (eg directly behind a wall).
So, it all comes down to - do I think it's a great photo or do I look at it as art. On the whole, I love photography and sometimes like the art.
+1I don't like HDR that attempts to make a photograph look better than it actually was. The example of the bench from a couple of days ago looked nothing like the photographer would have seen the scene and also the processing wasn't enough to make it 'art'. Steve's image and even Paul's when I look at them make me think "there's been processing there" but they don't look out and out false and they retain the right to be called good photos.
The classic bit of HDR I can't stand is when you have very obvious light from one direction in a landscape yet the ground which naturally would be in shadow seems to have an amazing amount of light and colour (eg directly behind a wall).
So, it all comes down to - do I think it's a great photo or do I look at it as art. On the whole, I love photography and sometimes like the art.
I either want to be able to believe a picture could have been taken pretty much straight out of the camera, or wowed by an eye-catching image like the digger.
Can't stand HDR done for the sake of it - usually because it looks false to my eye.
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