Focusing

No. 60

September 18, 2007

This is a long-exposure view off of my balcony at midnight.

So I am taking a go at HDR. For the uninitiated: this is a fairly new technology/practice in the universe of digital photography where you take multiple shots of the same scene (typically 3, but perhaps 5 or more) and merge them together in order to even out the features of your subject. It is particularly well suited for situations like, for instance, a sunset where you have a background and foreground that have substantially different lighting. HDR will merge different exposures to smooth out the difference in a way that more closely resembles what your eye would see (without the inevitable over- or under-exposure of part of the subject that you would get with a single shot from your camera). This site has a good overview.

The picture above is my attempt at HDR using Photomatix. I have noticed that a lot of photobloggers out there say they use this so I thought I would give it a try. You can use it for free, but they watermark the result unless you pay for a license. Since I am just trying it out, the above image is watermarked with their logo, as you can see.

What do you think? Is the result cool enough for me to buy the software?

Here are the original photos that I merged: one, two, three. BTW, because the above image is the result of multiple exposures, you will notice that there is no info for shutter speed, time taken, etc.

Comments [post]

100 Most Recent

Your Favorite Sister
September 21, 2007 - 2:30pm
This is REALLY cool. I am SO impressed. I got heather a cool camera for her birthday... It can pick up on only one color and the rest is black and white, does yours do that? Keep it up!

Heather
September 20, 2007 - 9:06am
Holy cow! I'm so impressed with how much you are doing with photography and your new camera Jeff. I think that shot is beautiful and it was *really* cool to see the original three, I can't believe the way they all merged to make that great picture. Good job, keep it up! I'd say buy the software (or put it on your Christmas list :))

Angel
September 19, 2007 - 12:55pm
Yes! Comparing the 1st 3 to the finished product- your photo looks pretty amazing.