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Holding on
Image by Lightscapes | Ramon J. Freire
Published at www.rjfblog.Lightscapes.wordpress.com, Jan 13, 2013
I am not the greatest fan of the excessive usage of HDR techniques. Some photographers do manage to do a great job with it (see links below of examples) but when the effect becomes the objective itself, specially if emphasis is on the tonal enhancement, I think the whole thing becomes too distracting.
I use my HDR software (Photomatix 3.0) when, from a single shot I can not capture the entire range of exposure I try to obtain. I use this picture below as an example.
The idea was to capture the leaves holding to this rock both above and below the water and, at the same time, the strength of the current. That is what caught my eye when crossing this creek and what I wanted to photograph.
To capture the effect of water flowing, I tested the speed around 2.5" (85mm, ƒ6.3, ISO 100), which was good enough, but sent the exposure of the leaves about the water sky-high, clipping many of the details. When narrowing the aperture to ƒ10 I started to lose some of the underwater detail, so after a bit of fiddling with the menu controls on the camera I had to go fully manual (I usually live on (A)perture).
With the speed at 2.5" I shot three exposures at ƒ10, ƒ6.3 and ƒ5.6 (for the extra light under water).
Obviously, when bracketing for later development in Photomatix there is no certainty until one hits the computer back home, but since one can still adjust the EV on Camera Raw there is not much risk (as long as the exposure is the issue).
And added bonus from using a multiple exposure is the water flow effect was amplified in some areas and mellowed on other which helped with the intended high contrast result I wanted.
This series of pictures took my tripod (Manfrotto 190XProB+joystick head 222) to its limit, and held my breath in a couple of occasion. But it was worth it.
My next post will be about the shot I tool with this tripod set up and the adjustment of presence values (Clarity, Vibrancy and Saturation)
A couple of good places to see some HDR work, I leave up to you to like and dislike. I like the gentle approach, respecting the original tones of the picture.
www.hdrsoft.com/gallery/index.php
Some specific examples I enjoy:
john Adams: photomatix-gallery.s3.amazonaws.com/adams/normal/The%20Ed…
Dieter Bethke: photomatix-gallery.s3.amazonaws.com/dieter/normal/db_001.jpg
Stephane Bureau: photomatix-gallery.s3.amazonaws.com/bureau/normal/Grands%…
Alex Lindeijer: photomatix-gallery.s3.amazonaws.com/alexl/normal/lindeije…
Wojciech Toman: photomatix-gallery.s3.amazonaws.com/wojtek/small/IcyRiver…
Paul Timpa: photomatix-gallery.s3.amazonaws.com/paul/normal/06_BW_Bri…
Ramon
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