Monday, October 20, 2008

Fun With HDR Photos!

I bought a new Canon Rebel XSI before I headed off to Europe with the intention of capturing some good HDR photos using the Auto-Bracketing setting on the camera.
For those new to HDR, its basically taking the same photo at 3 or more different exposures, then combining them into a single photo. I use Photomatix software, which I've been able to produce better results with than Photoshop. Hit 'generate HDR' in Photomatix, then once combined use the tone mapping tool to tweak it.

Below is an example of mine, taken of Charles Bridge in Prague at sunset.
3 different exposures:


The end result after Tone Mapping:


BANG!

1 comments:

Andrew said...

Extremely useful study. I have a Nikon D80 and have been wondering how to bracket like this. Your post inspired me to figure it out with the D80 + Photoshop and it makes a tremendous difference when taking architectural photos. The sky and the building can each be their own photo essentially. I don't think most architects realize that with a few tricks like this - they don't really need a professional photographer to shoot their projects. And at the cost of a few pro photo shoots the camera and software can be purchased.