Pages: 1 [2] 3 4   Go Down

Author Topic: The Never Ending Holy Quest for Dynamic Range  (Read 19607 times)

HarperPhotos

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 1309
    • http://www.harperphoto.com
Re: The Never Ending Holy Quest for Dynamic Range
« Reply #20 on: October 05, 2011, 05:05:22 pm »

Hi Doug,

Thanks for showing the different types of image processing.

I hope you don’t mind but I did a few tweaks on your ACR image just to brighten it up, I hope you don’t mind.

I’m a big fan of ACR due to a number of features so I look forward to reading your thoughts.

Regards

Simon
Logged
Simon Harper
Harper Photographics Ltd
http://www.harperphoto.com
http://www.facebook.com/harper.photographics

Auckland, New Zealand

BernardLanguillier

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 13983
    • http://www.flickr.com/photos/bernardlanguillier/sets/
Re: The Never Ending Holy Quest for Dynamic Range
« Reply #21 on: October 05, 2011, 05:16:50 pm »

If you have a bit of patience left in you, it might be worth trying Oloneo.

http://www.oloneo.com/

I have still very limited experience, but this is the first HDR software that makes me feel it might have the potential to become usable. And like you, I hate those. :-)

Oloeno seems to still have some quality issues though (had some errors opening tiff files).

Cheers,
Bernard

ChristopherBarrett

  • Guest
Re: The Never Ending Holy Quest for Dynamic Range
« Reply #22 on: October 05, 2011, 05:19:12 pm »

That's totally what I'm saying, Simon.  If you can get a single capture that has all the DR you need, then you can easily add contrast where needed to achieve the best overall feel.  This approach, if achievable, makes way more sense to me than multilayered HDR processes I've been using lately.

-Chris
Logged

Kirk Gittings

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 1561
    • http://www.KirkGittings.com
Re: The Never Ending Holy Quest for Dynamic Range
« Reply #23 on: October 05, 2011, 05:36:09 pm »

Kirk, How do the Enfuse/Lightroom blends compare to Photomatix?  Does it do a better job with handling the window detail flare?  My workaround for handling that is to shoot the window area with strobe to balance the frame detail with the outside exposure which adds a fair amount of time to the shot.  Jim

I've done that too but I'm skipping the separate strobe shot for the window frames at this point-just using LR/Enfuse. I never liked Photomatix-could never get anything as good as yours.
Logged
Thanks,
Kirk Gittings

Graham Mitchell

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 2281
Re: The Never Ending Holy Quest for Dynamic Range
« Reply #24 on: October 05, 2011, 05:46:43 pm »

If you have a bit of patience left in you, it might be worth trying Oloneo.

http://www.oloneo.com/

Looks interesting, but it's PC-only at this stage.
Logged

eronald

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 6642
    • My gallery on Instagram
Re: The Never Ending Holy Quest for Dynamic Range
« Reply #25 on: October 05, 2011, 07:05:27 pm »

Hi Simon,

 This is interesting, the image has acquired a "3d" feel that one only has in the best captures; the floor is gorgeous.
 But something has gone subtly wrong at the same time with the color.
 I'd say we are seeing your skill, the best abilities of ACR, and the problems of ACR.

Edmund

Hi Doug,

Thanks for showing the different types of image processing.

I hope you don’t mind but I did a few tweaks on your ACR image just to brighten it up, I hope you don’t mind.

I’m a big fan of ACR due to a number of features so I look forward to reading your thoughts.

Regards

Simon
Logged
If you appreciate my blog posts help me by following on https://instagram.com/edmundronald

BernardLanguillier

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 13983
    • http://www.flickr.com/photos/bernardlanguillier/sets/
Re: The Never Ending Holy Quest for Dynamic Range
« Reply #26 on: October 05, 2011, 07:54:35 pm »

Looks interesting, but it's PC-only at this stage.

True, my quick trials were done in a VMWare fusion 4.0 virtual machine (win7 64 bits) on top of 10.6.8.

I don't know if the problems I have seen are related to that or not.

The author promised me that a mac version is coming with a free license migration.

Cheers,
Bernars

mediumcool

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 770
Re: The Never Ending Holy Quest for Dynamic Range
« Reply #27 on: October 06, 2011, 04:23:32 am »

I think the OP’s first image is lively; the others are flatter/duller. I would simply paint a mask for the really bright areas where more detail is desired and reduce exposure and saturation, where there is a cast (the curtain on the right is going a bit cool in a number of different directions depending on the processing).
Logged
FaceBook facebook.com/ian.goss.39   www.mlkshk.com/user/mediumcool

David Grover / Capture One

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 1324
    • Capture One
Re: The Never Ending Holy Quest for Dynamic Range
« Reply #28 on: October 06, 2011, 05:43:25 am »


I don't think a multi shot back will be so practical for you....


Because you don't sell it? 

We have many customers shooting interiors with Multi Shot cameras.  Favoured not only for an extension in the DR but mostly for rendition of Fabrics, textures, materials.. often very important for designers and architects alike.

For example, IKEA dropped using single shot cameras a long time ago for the room sets that they capture for those reasons.

David

Logged
David Grover
Business Support and Development Manager

fotometria gr

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 568
    • www.fotometria.gr
Re: The Never Ending Holy Quest for Dynamic Range
« Reply #29 on: October 06, 2011, 07:31:33 am »

Because you don't sell it? 

We have many customers shooting interiors with Multi Shot cameras.  Favoured not only for an extension in the DR but mostly for rendition of Fabrics, textures, materials.. often very important for designers and architects alike.

For example, IKEA dropped using single shot cameras a long time ago for the room sets that they capture for those reasons.

David


I'm sure he would get blur on the curtain in this one David, my experience says that there is no way to keep a thin curtain absolutely still. Film is my suggestion for this particular one, multishot would do if curtain was absent or if he doesn't mind some blur. Regards, Theodoros. www.fotometria.gr
Logged

yaya

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 1254
    • http://yayapro.com
Re: The Never Ending Holy Quest for Dynamic Range
« Reply #30 on: October 06, 2011, 08:08:10 am »

Because you don't sell it? 

We have many customers shooting interiors with Multi Shot cameras.  Favoured not only for an extension in the DR but mostly for rendition of Fabrics, textures, materials.. often very important for designers and architects alike.

For example, IKEA dropped using single shot cameras a long time ago for the room sets that they capture for those reasons.

David


David I'm sure you've read the whole sentence yet you chose to pick on the the first few words.

There's a world of difference between shooting a room-set that is built in a big studio and doing it on-location, with just a tripod, a couple of portable lights/ reflectors and (maybe) an assistant...

I've yet to see an MS back that is successfully and efficiently used on an ALPA, an Arca-Swiss or a Cambo with Rollei/ Schneider shutters and wide angle lenses for architecture. Copal is king there!

Yair
Logged
Yair Shahar | Product Manager | Phase One - Cultural Heritage
e: ysh@phaseone.com |

David Grover / Capture One

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 1324
    • Capture One
Re: The Never Ending Holy Quest for Dynamic Range
« Reply #31 on: October 06, 2011, 08:09:56 am »

I'm sure he would get blur on the curtain in this one David, my experience says that there is no way to keep a thin curtain absolutely still. Film is my suggestion for this particular one, multishot would do if curtain was absent or if he doesn't mind some blur. Regards, Theodoros. www.fotometria.gr

Hi Theodoros,

Normally a single "safety" shot is used for such instances.

D
Logged
David Grover
Business Support and Development Manager

mediumcool

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 770
Re: The Never Ending Holy Quest for Dynamic Range
« Reply #32 on: October 06, 2011, 08:16:43 am »

David I'm sure you've read the whole sentence yet you chose to pick on the the first few words.

David does present as a sensitive soul.
Logged
FaceBook facebook.com/ian.goss.39   www.mlkshk.com/user/mediumcool

Bart_van_der_Wolf

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 8913
Re: The Never Ending Holy Quest for Dynamic Range
« Reply #33 on: October 06, 2011, 10:56:23 am »

If you have a bit of patience left in you, it might be worth trying Oloneo.

http://www.oloneo.com/

I have still very limited experience, but this is the first HDR software that makes me feel it might have the potential to become usable. And like you, I hate those. :-)

Oloeno seems to still have some quality issues though (had some errors opening tiff files).

Hi Bernard,

Last time I tried it, it also had issues (black rims around the window edges) with e.g. outdoor scenes seen from indoors or similar abrupt high contrast transitions.

I prefer SNS-HDR for its natural looking tonemapping capabilities. It's a Windows program, but I've heard somewhere that it also can run on a Mac under Parallels. It got just updated to version 1.4.0 which added adjustment mask layers.

The program also caught the attention of Christian Bloch, the author of 'The HDRI Handbook' and an acclaimed Visual Effects Artist, who wrote in a review:
Quote from: Christian Bloch on his hdrlabs.com website
I'm just coming from a review marathon of 20 HDR programs for the upcoming book revision. Turned out that one application really stood out from the crowd. I figured it would be mean to not share this with you right away, because you can most certainly use it for some great photography in the meantime.

Cheers,
Bart
« Last Edit: October 06, 2011, 01:51:14 pm by BartvanderWolf »
Logged
== If you do what you did, you'll get what you got. ==

Pantoned

  • Jr. Member
  • **
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 99
    • http://www.arnauanglada.com/
Re: The Never Ending Holy Quest for Dynamic Range
« Reply #34 on: October 06, 2011, 12:45:17 pm »

I did try a lot of software last summer: exposure fusion withenfuse/tufuse/photomatix as well as sns and oloneo. I think exposure fusion is the way to go, faster than hdr, no halos, you can go with 3 bracket shots or less. Sns and Oloneo can produce good results "sometimes", but they can light up part of the image that are not suposed to be that light; I mean, they are unpredictable sometimes, and you need to tweak them very much to have an acceptable result. A very important feature of this kind of processing is deghosting, specially if you are shooting landscape.

I think that the problem of dynamic range is inherently the medium. We are trying to put a high dynamic range scene in a low dynamic range medium (either paper or screen). It reminds me of the 80's videogames with 16 or 256 colors, they were trying to put a caribbean sunset as a background but,  hey, it was 16 colours, how could it look even close? The solution of dynamic range  problems will be of course hdr capture/output devices. That's why I agree with the opinion that the first photo looks more natural. This courtain should be bright, it cannot be a medium gray. If a film were used, would there be detail in the curtains? maybe, but if there was detail, this detail would be very compressed towards the whites, while with digital is linearly distributed, so the values go towards the midtones. We can not forget that our vision is not linear.
Logged
---------------------------------------

David Grover / Capture One

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 1324
    • Capture One
Re: The Never Ending Holy Quest for Dynamic Range
« Reply #35 on: October 06, 2011, 02:10:46 pm »

David does present as a sensitive soul.

If you're dishing out hugs...
Logged
David Grover
Business Support and Development Manager

mediumcool

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 770
Re: The Never Ending Holy Quest for Dynamic Range
« Reply #36 on: October 06, 2011, 05:12:51 pm »

If you're dishing out hugs...

Alas, we are continents apart.  ;D
Logged
FaceBook facebook.com/ian.goss.39   www.mlkshk.com/user/mediumcool

fredjeang

  • Guest
Re: The Never Ending Holy Quest for Dynamic Range
« Reply #37 on: October 06, 2011, 06:25:44 pm »

That's totally what I'm saying, Simon. If you can get a single capture that has all the DR you need, then you can easily add contrast where needed to achieve the best overall feel. ..

Then you'd need something like this IMO.



I'm teasing I'm teasing.

Seriously, I don't know if a Log C profile style would be available for the Epic. Months ago I did a quite similar unwanted testing as yours and saw exactly the same between C1 and ACR actually.



Ps: don't tell me you got the Epic.  ;)
« Last Edit: October 06, 2011, 06:38:38 pm by fredjeang »
Logged

ChristopherBarrett

  • Guest
Re: The Never Ending Holy Quest for Dynamic Range
« Reply #38 on: October 06, 2011, 08:31:23 pm »


Ps: don't tell me you got the Epic.  ;)


;)

Logged

Mr. Rib

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 865
Re: The Never Ending Holy Quest for Dynamic Range
« Reply #39 on: October 06, 2011, 09:12:13 pm »

Chris, if I may- can you tell me how does actually so-called, so much advertised "HDR recording" work? I just don't see how can a camera record each frame with two different exposures to blend them afterwards.. or is it simply pushing and pulling the same frame and blending them (thanks to good DR of the camera)?
« Last Edit: October 06, 2011, 09:13:51 pm by Mr. Rib »
Logged
Pages: 1 [2] 3 4   Go Up