Another picture post-HDR time!

these pics are hosted on flickr, where i have a new pro account and where i’ve decided to host the majority of my images.

these three pictures were taken during the trip to thayer’s street that you may or may not have read about on my wife’s blog. they are all comprised of multiple exposures, with exposure bracketing across -2/0/+2ev. in other words, each of these three shots you see were themselves made up of three shots: one underexposed, one exposed “just right,” and one overexposed. the three bracketed shots were taken in quick succession, around 3/5ths of a second total time. because of how fast they were taken i was able to handhold the camera for all of them.

the three exposures were then reassembled in HDR (high dynamic range) software which pumps out a 32bit file. during the stitching process the software i use (photomatix pro) offers a choice of whether or not there are moving elements present in the picture, such as flags/cars/people/etc. i enabled that option which basically reverts to one of the many exposures for the “master” copy of that moving object. it saves time in post process, and works remarkably well. there is also an option for aligning source images which basically should always be turned on.

after that two renditions of the HDR image were made. the reason why renditions must be made is because there is no monitor or printer available that can actually reproduce the dynamic range that a 32bit image contains. as a result there is ALWAYS tonemapping that must be done to an HDR image.

there are two basic methods to tonemapping, one is “detail enhancement” and the other is “tone compression.” both have their advantages, so i choose to make one copy of each of them and then layer them in photoshop to adjust their relative intensities. after a while i basically come out with what you see here.

if you’re interested in seeing more images in the same vein, check out a thread i created on NSOP: ken’s hdr thread.