ProjectVISUAL » High Dynamic Range

HDR Tutorial Part 2 – Hardware & Image Capture

Stephen — Mon, 28 Dec 2009 21:40:09 +0000

(N.B. This is Part 2 of my HDR Tutorial. Part 1, which is a brief introduction to HDR, can be found here.)

Right, we know now what HDR is and what type of results we can achieve from the whole process. The next step is to actually get outside and take some RAW images! For this you will need:

A camera (essential, DSLR is highly recommended), that can shoot in RAW (preferable but not essential), and can auto bracket (preferable but will be a real pain if it can’t ).
A tripod (preferable; I have one, rarely bring it with me on trips, and always regret not having it.)

My current camera of choice is the Nikon D300 (you can pick up its successor, the D300s at B&H Photo); it’s solid, heavy, fast, and takes great images. It also shoots in RAW, a feature found on all DSLRs. RAW is the uncompressed sensor data that is captured by your DSLR each time you take a picture. If you shoot in JPG then what you are really doing is shooting in RAW and letting your camera compress the data into a JPG before saving. This all happens in the background and requires no input from you, however you are losing valuable image information by setting your camera to shoot in JPG. HDR is still doable with a set of JPGs; it just probably won’t give you the best results.

The D300 also has that single most important feature I mentioned in Part 1: auto-bracketing (AEB). AEB is the ability of a camera to take a metered shot (that’s your initial shot), followed in quick succession by a user defined number of under and over exposed shots (remember my five thumbnail shots in Part 1?). The amount of under or over exposure is measured in exposure values (EVs). I’m sure there are entire books on just exposure. In fact, here’s one! And here’s another! However I’m going to explain it as best I can in just a few lines!

Understanding Exposure Values- A crash course.

EV is a function of your camera’s ISO, shutter speed, and aperture size, and all other things remaining constant (e.g. if you’re in manual mode), will vary like this:

If you increase your ISO, you increase the EV. When shooting for HDR we only use a single ISO value (the lower the better to minimise noise), so we don’t need to worry about this.
Opening your aperture, e.g. from f/11 to f/4 will increase your EV. We also only use one aperture setting, to keep the depth of field constant (I always shoot using aperture priority) so we don’t need to worry about this either. Easy so far!
Shutter speed is where all the action happens . Increasing the shutter speed will reduce the EV. Specifically, if you double your shutter speed, say from 1/15s to 1/30s the EV will decrease by about 1. Conversely, if you half your shutter speed, say from 1/30s to 1/15s the EV will increase by about 1.

Many DSLRs, the D300 included, can be set up to automatically take under and over exposed images at EV values of ±1 and ±2, relative to the initial metered shot. In Part 1 of this tutorial my metered shot was at 1/60s, and my under and overexposed shots were at shutter speeds of 1/15s (+2EV), 1/30s (+1EV), 1/125s (-1EV) and 1/250s (-2EV). As you’ve probably realised by now this is a very, very handy feature to have on your camera if you’re interested in HDR photography; without it you would have to manually change your shutter speed to give you the proper change in EV, something I’m sure I would grow tired of very quickly! When getting any DSLR make sure it has AEB functions.

Anything else?

Yes actually! You really should get a tripod. Keeping your camera steady while it is taking multiple images at different EVs is quite tough without one; I’ve tried it handheld and it just doesn’t really work. Sitting your camera on a wall or table is a workaround but then you are severely limiting the number of directions you can point your lens . On the rare occasion I bother to bring them, I use Hahnel Triad 50 tripod legs with a Manfrotto 322RC2 Joystick Head. The joystick head is a real wonder – it allows almost 360 degree positioning for your camera with nothing more than a squeeze of the grip. A tripod is well worth investing in if your serious about tack sharp images, there are plenty to choose from over at the B&H Photo website. The Manfrotto joystick head is also in stock .

I know now what I need, what do I shoot?

I don’t know! Whatever you want! Anything can be HDRed, the trick is knowing what can be HDRed well. Personally I love landscape shots with cloudy skies, shiny vehicles are great too, oh shots when the sun is prominent can be wonderful too, but they’re a bit tricky. The best thing to do is just get out and experiment. The one thing you want to keep in mind is you’re looking for a scene that cannot be captured by a single exposure; they’ll benefit most from the HDR treatment. Some examples are a dark room with a bright window, landscapes with a glaring sun, you get the idea…

To aid this tutorial I went out, set up my tripod, fastened my D300 securely to it, set my ISO to 200, aperture priority at f/9, and AEB to take a metered shot and four others at ±2 and ±1EV. The shutter speed of the metered shot was chosen by my camera to be 1/800s. Can you work out the other shutter speeds from this? Remember I don’t have to figure out these other shutter speeds, the camera does that for me, I just tell it the EVs to use. Here are the five images I took, below it is the finished HDR.

In Part 3 we’ll actually talk about turning the five images above into the finished HDR photo. The one essential piece of software you’ll need for this is Photomatix, which can be found at Hdrsoft.com. There are others, but Photomatix is in my opinion the best I’ve tried. If you have it already that’s great, if not you can download a free trial version from the website for either WINDOWS or MAC OSX. Any images made with the trial version will be watermarked however .

Purchase Photomatix at 15% discount with Coupon Code “projectvisual”

If you’re feeling adventurous you can jump straight in and buy Photomatix for either WINDOWS or MAC at a discount of 15% if you use the coupon code “projectvisual”; you’ll see where to enter it if you click either of my oversized links below! Hdrsoft were kind enough to give me this code because I asked them so nicely

A quick recap.

You’ll want a camera with AEB functions. The D300s, with a 16-85mm VR lens has them, but may be a bit expensive at over $2000! For the more budget conscience consumer, the Nikon D5000, with an 18-105mm lens and AEB controls will set you back just a shade over $1000. Of course there are cheaper ones still, browse around B&H Photo.com and see what catches your eye.
Tripod legs and head: anything sturdy will do . Again, I’d recommend the Manfrotto Joystick Head, just because it’s unbelievably convenient.

Some final tips that I’ve learned from the D300:

If you have slow moving subjects in your scene like clouds or leaves perhaps, use a large aperture to increase the speed at which your images are captured. This won’t help when it comes to dynamic scenes such as people moving – but there’s a way around that…
Use continuous auto-focus; if you chose single auto-focus your camera will refocus (possibly on different subjects) between each shot, and we don’t want that now!
Shoot in aperture priority when shooting HDR; pick your own depth of field and leave the shutter speed to the camera.

Part 3 of this tutorial will arrive early in the New Year (it’s here!), in the meantime I’m heading down to south Ireland to ring in the new decade

P.S. If there is some information you feel is lacking / not explained well here please lets me know and I’ll fill in the gaps

HDR Tutorial (Part 1)

Stephen — Sun, 27 Dec 2009 16:23:02 +0000

(N.B. This is Part 1 of my HDR Tutorial, Part 2 can be found here)

It’s been one year now since I started dabbling in HDR photography and thought it was high time to put together a tutorial on the subject.

HDR (High Dynamic Range) photos are running rampant on the internet at the moment, so I’m going to assume you all know what is meant by the term HDR – blending multiple pictures of the same scene, shot at different shutter speeds in order to capture the full range of lights and shadows.
…
OK quick example: look at the array of five images below. They’re all of the same scene, but one thing is different in all of them: each was shot at a different shutter speed. Why did I do that? Well, if you look at each photo you can see that different parts are either under, over, or properly exposed. Look at the middle photo; that’s my metered photo and was shot using a shutter speed of 1/60s and aperture of f/22 (at an ISO of 200). I was using aperture priority at the time and exposure, apart from the sky, looks OK. However, if I hadn’t been shooting with the intention of making a HDR image then I would have only taken this image and I would be left with an overexposed sky. But I also took four other images, at shutter speeds of 1/250s (1^st image), 1/125s (2^nd image), 1/30s (4^th image) and 1/15s (5^th image). Between the five images I should have the full range of lights and shadows in the scene (the first two contains details of the sky while the last two contain details in the foreground). You can see from the histogram beneath each photo that it moves from black to white as the exposure is increased so I know I’m getting the full spectrum of light.

Once you have a set of such photos, and I’ll explain the best way to do this, you can combine them together using some software like Photomatix or HDR Max, and do some touch up in Photoshop, I’ll explain all this later so don’t worry

First though, here are some of my favorite photos that I’ve taken. Just to confuse you a little more, some of these were made using just one photo – I’ll explain how that works too! I’ve included the original metered image so you can contrast it to the HDR photo; I think you’ll agree HDR can significantly umph up your portfolio!

Glendalough (Ireland)

Barcelona (Spain)

Notre Dame (France)

Barcelona (Spain)

Valletta (Malta)

OK, now you’ve seen the type of results you can achieve using HDR techniques (these photos are really tone mapped rather than high dynamic range, but to 90% of the internet population they’re called HDR so let’s not nitpick!), the next step is to run through quickly what you will need to get great results. First on the list: you need some decent HARDWARE!! Head on over to Part Two to hear what I use, and find out what the single most important feature is that you’ll need on your camera to maximise your HDR photos

The Pint That Led To Barcelona

Stephen — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 20:15:38 +0000

It’s been a couple of days since my last post – that pint I mentioned in my last post got completely out of control and turned into a spontaneous two day trip to Barcelona. I did have just enough time to grab my camera along with my passport but unfortunately the the weather in Barcelona was utterly shit for the two days so there won’t really be many pictures coming from there

So it’s back to busines now anyway, here’s yet another pic from Malta – it was taken at around 06:30, just after sunrise.

Technorati Tags: projectvisual, Nikon, D300, Malta, Sunrise, Ship, Docked, Pint, Barcelona, Water

Ghosts In Notre Dame

Stephen — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 23:00:19 +0000

I couldn’t think of anything to write about this photo so I just got my french flatmate to do a guest post instead – I speak absolutely no french whatsoever so I don’t actually know what any of this means!

Instants sacres au pied de l’autel de cette Cathedrale d’une beaute epoustouflante, dans leauel bat le coeur de Paris et le Genie architectural francais.
VIve la France!

Technorati Tags: projectvisual, Nikon, D300, Tone Mapped, HDR, Notre Dame, Ghosts, Paris

Fungus Rock Bathed In Light

Stephen — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 20:50:36 +0000

You’ve already seen Fungus Rock in a previous post, but it seems to be some sort of special tourist attraction in Gozo so I thought I’d post it again from another angle!

This was one amazing view – possibly the highlight of the sight seeing part of my trip to Malta. The weather was great, plenty of clouds in the sky, annoying tourists all around me. Actually, scrap that last part, they were really annoying.

Also, a couple of people have asked about prints – I swear I’m getting around to it! It’s just that the printing site I’m using doesn’t seem to be showing good thumbnail / previews of the photos I upload to it – the colours seem washed out a little. I just want to be sure that what I upload is what gets printed

Technorati Tags: projectvisual, Nikon, D300, Tone Mapped, HDR, Malta, Gozo, Fungus Rock, Heaven, Light, Clouds

Looking At A Scene From A Different Angle

Stephen — Sat, 21 Mar 2009 13:00:19 +0000

One of the great things about using a proper tripod and head is that you can quickyly position your camera at almost any angle quickly and easily for those out of the ordinary shots. I use a Manfrotto joystick head with my tripod now and it’s truly the best – a quick squeeze of the handle and my camera swings around any which way I want it. Also, with the joystick head I’ve been taking a lot more portrait like shots.

Camera Settings (1 NEF file – Nikon D300 Body, Nikkor 18-200mm VR Lens, Tripod.)

Aperture: f/8
ISO: 200
Lens: 18-200@18mm
Shutter Speed: 1/1600s

Technorati Tags: projectvisual, Nikon, D300, Tone Mapped, HDR, Malta, Mdina, calm, Gozo, Mediterranean

Checking Out The Mediterranean

Stephen — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 12:00:06 +0000

Velatta Bay is a fortified peninsula on the east coast of Malta – from it’s walls you can see out into the Mediterranean Sea at all angles (eh except when looking at Malta). It was from these docks below that getting from Sliema to Valetta was just a quick skip across the bay.

Camera Settings (5 NEF files – Nikon D300 Body, Nikkor 18-200mm VR Lens, Camera was propped on the wall.)

Aperture: f/7.1
ISO: 200
Lens: 18-200@18mm
Shutter Speed: 1/1600s, 1/800s, 1/400s, 1/200s, 1/100s

Technorati Tags: projectvisual, Nikon, D300, Tone Mapped, HDR, Malta, Valetta, Bay, dock, boats, ship, summer, hot, Mediterranean

Blazing Sunset Over Valetta Bay In Malta

Stephen — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 10:15:43 +0000

OK time to start posting some colourful Malta pics! Here’s one from my first day there – it’s taken from one of the corners of Valetta: a fort city and also Malta’s capital. I hadn’t taken my tripod with me on the first day as we didn’t know what we were doing that first evening but the whole place is surrounded by low walls that work just fine as a stand in one.

Did you know that Valetta was on of the first (or even first!) city to be built using a grid pattern to outline its streets?? Oooooooh!

Camera Settings (5 NEF files – Nikon D300 Body, Nikkor 18-200mm VR Lens, Camera was supported on a rock)

Aperture: f/22
ISO: 200
Lens: 18-200@18mm
Shutter Speed: 1/1000s, 1/500s, 1/250s, 1/125s, 1/60s,

Technorati Tags: Nikon, D300, Tone Mapped, HDR, Malta, Valetta, Bay, Sunset, Blazing, Piercing, yellow, rock, water

The Grand Chandelier Of Notre Dame

Stephen — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 19:35:27 +0000

I got back from Malta yesterday after sitting on a plane for four hours next to a perspirant-efficient and circumferentially-challenged individual, but the trip away was fantastic – lots of homoerotic bonding with a certain flatmate.

Oogles of photos to sift through but for today I found this shot of inside Notre Dame that I rather liked – I’ve begun using Photoshop now rather than GIMP as I’m finding Photoshop more intuitive with it’s many many features.

Camera Settings (1 NEF files – Nikon D300 Body, Nikkor 18-200mm VR Lens, No Tripod)

Aperture: f/3.5
ISO: 200
Lens: 18-200@18mm
Shutter Speed: 1/3s

Technorati Tags: Nikon, D300, Tone Mapped, HDR, Notre Dame, Chandelier, Lights, Shadows, Paris, Church, Cathedral

A View Of Phoenix Park

Stephen — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 12:00:50 +0000

This is Phoenix Park: the largest public park in Europe! Wooooo!

I’m still in Malta (I left on Tuesday), and will get back on Saturday, in the meantime, hopefully everything is running smoothly here!

Camera Settings (1 NEF files – Nikon D300 Body, Nikkor 18-200mm VR Lens, No Tripod)

Aperture: f/5.3
ISO: 200
Lens: 18-200@105mm
Shutter Speed: 1/100s

Technorati Tags: Nikon, D300, Tone Mapped, Zoo, Dublin, Chimp, Ape

The Pensive Ape

Stephen — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 12:00:45 +0000

This chimp looked dead depressed – do you agree with keeping animals in cages?

Camera Settings (1 NEF files – Nikon D300 Body, Nikkor 18-200mm VR Lens, No Tripod)

Aperture: f/5.3
ISO: 200
Lens: 18-200@105mm
Shutter Speed: 1/100s

Technorati Tags: Nikon, D300, Tone Mapped, Zoo, Dublin, Chimp, Ape

Walkway Of The Flamingos

Stephen — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 12:00:15 +0000

There was a large flock of flamingos near here (you can see them to the right) but I just couldn’t get a good shot of them so I had to settle for this bridge instead. Oh well.

Camera Settings (1 NEF files – Nikon D300 Body, Nikkor 18-200mm VR Lens, No Tripod)

Aperture: f/4.5
ISO: 200
Lens: 18-200@18mm
Shutter Speed: 1/800s

Technorati Tags: Nikon, D300, Tone Mapped, Zoo, Walkway, Flamingo, Water, River, Lake,

The Babbling Bruck

Stephen — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 23:45:34 +0000

This stream/bruck/river/cadever runs near my college and is home to some of the most rickety bridges known to man. They can carry one stream of traffic; so if you happen to be standing on one such bridge and another person wishes to get by, you have to lean over the edge and pray to Poseidon not to pull you in.

Did you get yesterday’s post at full resolution (4319x2866pixels)???

Camera Settings (5 NEF files – Nikon D300 Body, Nikkor 18-200mm VR Lens)

Aperture: f/8
ISO: 200
Lens: 18-200@18mm
Shutter Speed: 1/500s, 1/250s, 1/125s, 1/60s, 1/30s

Technorati Tags: Nikon, D300, Tone Mapped, Dublin, River, Nature, Water, Stream, Bruck

Where All The Irish Celebrities Go (plus get this image at 4319x2866pixels!)

Stephen — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 21:50:25 +0000

It’s not just Paris that boasts an Eiffel Tower – Dublin has one aswell! OK it’s not quite as tall, it’s not as wide, tourists don’t go there and it’s rather flimsy looking, but is it situated on the RTE gounds, our national television broadcaster. Here, the best people that Ireland has to offer congregate – Pat Kenny, Ryan Tuberty, Gerry Ryan, amazing people.

A couple of people have asked whether I sell any photos – I don’t, not because I don’t want to, I’d love to!!, but I’m too lazy to set up any kind of shopping / checkout cart paypal thingy. Instead, I’ll start posting full resolution pics aswell from time to time, starting with the one you see today, that’s around 4288x2848pixels! It’s a bit blurry at full resolution since I took this from a bridge that was vibrating with all the traffic underneath I’ll stick the link for them in the RSS and email feeds so only my loyal subscribers can enjoy them! (It may take a day or so for the feed to refresh with the link so if it’s not there don’t fret! I will be soon enough!)

Also some critical comments on the image at full resolution would be most welcome! Does it look good? Awful? Just go crazy with your thoughts!

Camera Settings (5 NEF files – Nikon D300 Body, Nikkor 18-200mm VR Lens)

Aperture: f/8
ISO: 200
Lens: 18-200@18mm
Shutter Speed: 1/200s, 1/400s, 1/800s, 1/1600s, 1/3200s

Technorati Tags: Nikon, D300, Tone Mapped, Photography, Dublin, Rte

The Unusual Hanging Tree

Stephen — Sat, 28 Feb 2009 11:45:10 +0000

I don’t get this tree. OK I’ll elaborate a little, it’s the only tree of it’s kind in the entirety of Stephen’s Green. It looks so out of place and every time is pass it I wonder ‘Why?’.

I had taken 5 exposures using a tripod but in HDR Max the underexposed shots were too strong and were dulling the blended exposure shot too much so I just went ahead and tonemapped the metered shot.

Camera Settings (1 NEF file – Nikon D300 Body, Nikkor 18-200mm VR Lens)

Aperture: f/7.1
ISO: 200
Lens: 18-200@36mm
Shutter Speed: 1/25s

Technorati Tags: Nikon, D300, Tone Mapped, Photography, Dublin, Tree, Stephen’s Green

Dublin’s Liffey Lit Up At Night

Stephen — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 22:30:56 +0000

Oooooh I’ve just eaten a huge stir-fry with friends and am quite satisfied if I do say so myself. This is of course the River Liffey, the main (and only) river flowing through the wonderful city of Dublin. I had intended finishing the time-lapse video that it seems I will never finish but it was just too cold for me to bother, so I took this instead. There is a bit of noise in the water – I’ve never played around with noise reduction software but I’ll get onto that soon.

Camera Settings (1 NEF file)

Aperture: f/9
ISO: 200
Lens: 18-200@18mmmm
Shutter Speed: 30s

Technorati Tags: Nikon, D300, Tone Mapped, Photography, Dublin, River, Liffey, Water, Lights, Long Exposure

Another Last Minute Picture

Stephen — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 23:59:07 +0000

Here’s another quickie – recently I’ve been missing out on my usual routine of setting up a day’s post in the morning and instead I’m rushing it at the very end of the day. I was at a comedy night in college so that’s my excuse for today. The general topic up for discussion were the inner workings of canine excrement, and the evolutionary limitations of said canine disposing of said excrement, followed swiftly by masturbatory activities of the masturbation kind. Mmmm.

Oh yeah I think this was taken in Paris.

Camera Settings (1 NEF file)

Aperture: f/9
ISO: 200
Lens: 18-200@18mmmm
Shutter Speed: 1/50s

Technorati Tags: Nikon, D300, Tone Mapped, Photography, Paris, Car, Road

A Last Minute Post To Keep Up The Tradition Of Posting One Picture Everyday

Stephen — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 23:53:14 +0000

With 7 minutes before midnight I’m finally getting around to posting today’s picture – I want to get through the entire year without missing a single day and today is the closest I’ve come to actually doing so! My reason for being so late is that today was Pancake Tuesday, where everyone celebrates the fact that Jesus really loved pancakes or something. Really we should celebrate that everyday.

I’ve intentionally left in the multiple instances of the seagull flying overhead, either because I think it looks really great, or I’m too lazy to fix it.

Camera Settings (5 NEF files)

Aperture: f/9
ISO: 200
Lens: 18-200@18mmmm
Shutter Speed: 1/400s, 1/200s, 1/100s, 1/50s, 1/25s

Technorati Tags: Nikon, D300, Tone Mapped, Photography, Dublin, Stephen’s Green, Nature, Green, Lake, Water

At The Museum Of Natural History

Stephen — Sun, 22 Feb 2009 21:15:00 +0000

All my Paris photos have conveniently disappeared from where they are supposed to be on my computer, so here is an old shot taken in London over a year ago. I didn’t have my D300 at that time, instead I used a Finepix S9600. It’s taken outside the Natural History Museum in London.

Camera Settings (1 RAF file)

Aperture: f/4
ISO: 80
Lens: 8.1mm
Shutter Speed: 1/220s

Technorati Tags: Finepix, S9600, Tone Mapped, Photography, London, Museum, Natural History

A French Latte

Stephen — Wed, 18 Feb 2009 08:54:47 +0000

I can’t remember who, but someone on Twitter specifically asked for a picture of a french coffee, or cup maybe? and so I am delighted to finally oblige and present this exceedingly simple shot of a coffee one of my comrades ordered in a stupidly expensive cafe in Paris. I’ll have a rummage through Twitter later and try to identify exactly who was so eager! I hate coffee by the way – I hate the taste, the smell, the price the ad infinitum…

I really need to get back to shooting multiple exposures rather than relying on just one NEF file, college is keeping me from doing anything except, well college. I think I’m gonna try and see if I can make usually ordinary household items look more interesting over my next few posts.

Camera Settings (1 NEF file)

Aperture: f/9
ISO: 640
Lens: 18-200 @42mm
Shutter Speed: 1/250s

Technorati Tags: Nikon, D300, Tone Mapped, Photography, Paris, Cafe, Cup, Coffee, Latte, Chocolate, Expensive