Cypress Creek Pano

[brandon]

Lately I haven't been doing much HDR (High Dynamic Range) photography so I had an idea. When I used to do HDR i would use 3 images; one 2 stops overexposed, one 2 stops underexposed, and one that was the correct exposure. However the most recent ones I did were made of 5 photos... +2, +1, 0, -1, -2.....(+ and - stand for over/under exposure just so everybody can follow). I found with the 3 photo HDR's the final image was either too overdone or just didn't capture it how I wanted. The 5 photo HDR's turned out a lot more like what I was hoping for. But in some cases, highlights were still too blown and shadows were still too dark despite editing. This led me to try and use even MORE photos and to try and create the "idea" I had. The idea consists of a Panoramic photo with 5 photos stitched side by side. Each of those photos is an HDR and each HDR was created with 9 photos. +2, +1.5, +1, +0.5, 0, -0.5, -1, -1.5, -2. If you do the math, that's 45 photos used to create this.....

 

 

When I do HDR photography I try to keep the final result as natural looking as possible. When I first started, my shots looked like they were from another planet...and don't get me wrong, I still enjoy bumping the settings up a bit to give the photo a "painting" feel to it....The above one is sort of a combo between the natural/painting look.

 

And this one is just another shot I took while at Cypress Creek...

 

Edited January 8, 2010 by brandon

[danc]

Those are just awesome Brandon. The pano especially. I haven't been out with my camera in months. I keep saying to myself that I'll get out this coming weekend, but it never comes about. Lately it has just been too cold. This weekend isn't looking too bad weather wise. Perhaps this will be the one. I'd like to experiment with some winter hdr's myself.