The HDR Debate – What’s All The Fuss?

The HDR Debate – What’s All The Fuss?

从 PhotoWalkPro 作者：Jeff

Before I get started, let me just say that I am not looking to stir the flames that seemed to have been fanned by Trey Ratcliff’s guest blog appearance over at the Photoshop Insider this past Wednesday.  Trey wasn’t the one stirring things up, in fact his article really had nothing to do with HDR and was a very insightful piece that I highly recommend you read.  Here’s the thing though, Trey is most widely known for his HDR photography (he has just released a book of his HDR work) and in some circles is widely credited with popularizing the look with his heavily toned, brightly saturated images.  Of course Trey would be the first to downplay that analogy.  He’s just a guy that found something that he really enjoyed doing and was passionate about and shared it through his website, Stuck In Customs.  So why then is there such venom for over something that so many people have come to enjoy?

There are those that might call themselves purists and will decry even the mentioning of HDR as incorrect and a bastardization of the true meaning of high dynamic range.  Are they correct?  Well, technically yes.  HDR is more about capturing the range of tones that fall outside of the normal dynamic range of a single image range.  It is a process to capture that extended tonal range through the use of multiple exposures, which are then combined into a 32-bit file that contains extended highlight and shadow detail.  When that information is squeezed back into an 8 or 16-bit file, those extended tones need to be mapped back into a gamut that can be seen and printed by today’s display technology, thus we get the term “tonemapping”.  Sounds complicated doesn’t it?  The simple truth is that the look that many adapters of HDR capture and processing can look over-the-top to some people.  I have heard it referred to as cartoonish or Harry Potterish.  Or, as someone said last Wednesday, “It Sux” and “isn’t real photography”.  It’s this type of statement that I have a problem with.

Juan Gris - Portrait of Picasso

The mere words imply that we must all conform to one person’s definition of what is good and what is bad.  What is art and what is trash.  So if this is the case, who’s opinion is the correct one?  Was it the person that said that Cubism isn’t art?  How about Surrealism, or pop-art, or any other art form that was new and innovative and “different” from the norm.  The truth is that, as much as it irritates some of you out there, the term HDR will forever be associated with a style of imaging, no matter what the process or software used.  There’s no since in fighting it because it is just too popular of a label now to ever get that genie back in the bottle.  As for whether or not HDR is art or not is not for me to say, at least not where you are concerned.  You will need to form your own opinion.  If you like it, great, if not, that’s okay too.  Just remember that any art form is subjective and open to self-interpretation.  Just as I don’t think that Campbell Soup cans are art, there are a lot of folks that would disagree.

As for those of you that are interested in learning HDR and exploring what it has to offer, I say play to your heart’s content.  Photography should be personal before it is anything else.  If you like what you see and want to try your hand at it, then by all means, you should.  How many people do you think have ever tried to emulate the style and processes of Ansel Adams because they so loved the look of his images.  They may not have been successful but I bet they learned a lot along the way, which probably made them better photographers.   Just remember that you should always try to create for yourself.  Do the thing that inspires you the most and then work at it, rejoice in it, and, if you are brave enough to face the haters, share it with the rest of the world.

Related posts:

1. HDR – The Debate Rolls On
2. When HDR Goes Bad
3. Photoshop vs. Photomatix Pro

   

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10 Reasons to Turn off Your Autofocus

10 Reasons to Turn off Your Autofocus

从 How to Photograph Fireworks Displays 作者：Guest Contributor

A Guest Post by Alistair Scott.

When I started using a camera autofocus was something out of science fiction. I mean … it would never work in real life, would it? Apart from anything else, how could it know what you wanted to focus on?

Now fiction has become fact, and pretty well every camera has AF as standard. It works, and works well. But it doesn’t always work perfectly. It can pick up the wrong thing or fail to find anything to focus on, causing the lens to ‘hunt’ back and forth. Sometimes it won’t even let you fire the shutter.

So, here are ten situations when it’s worth turning your autofocus off and going back to the ‘good old days’ of manual focusing:

1. When there’s not enough light

In low light, contrast is also low, and AF relies on light and contrast to latch on to things. Your camera may have an AF assist lamp built in. But, even if you have it switched on, it won’t work in situations like in the shot above.

Though the image looks bright enough, in reality there was little light, and it required a 30-second exposure.

2. When there’s not enough contrast

If your AF metering spot is on something like a plain-coloured wall the camera will find it impossible to focus, no matter how bright the light, and the lens will ‘hunt’. You can re-frame your shot temporarily so the spot is on something with detail and press the shutter half down to activate the AF. Then keep the shutter button half-pressed to lock the focus, and go back to your original composition. Or focus by hand.

3. Shooting wildlife

Most wild animals have excellent hearing and, no matter how good your autofocus, it will make a noise. Even the slightest whirr is likely to spook wildlife. Switch it off if you want those great, natural wildlife shots.

4. With landscapes

When shooting landscapes you usually want things in focus from the foreground to distant mountains. This means closing down the aperture to increase depth of field and focusing about a third of the way into the scene (at a point called the ‘hyperfocal distance’ where everything from quite close to infinity is sharp). Switch off the AF. If you leave it on, when you press the shutter it will re-focus … probably on those far-off mountains.

5. If you’re doing HDR

High Dynamic Range photography involves taking several shots of the same scene, all exactly the same except for exposure, then blending them when you’re back at the computer. It’s important to have identical focus in each shot to ensure success. With AF on, it may choose a slightly different focus point for each shot.

6. Fast action

When you’re photographing a fast-moving subject, your AF will have its work cut out to keep up with the changing distances. Most times it fails. At this jump, in a radio-controlled buggy competition, I first started shooting in burst mode, with the AF switched on. This was the sort of thing I kept getting.

It wasn’t until I switched the AF (and burst mode) off and pre-focused on a spot where most of the buggies landed that I started to get decent shots.

7. Shooting through glass

Taking photographs through glass is generally not a good idea. Avoid it if you can. But sometimes it’s unavoidable, e.g. if you’re in a plane, or photographing fish in an aquarium. The trouble is, the AF may home in on reflections, or marks on the glass. So switch it off.

8. With portraits

The golden rule of portraiture is to focus on your subject’s eyes. What’s more, you often use a wide aperture to throw the background out of focus. But if your autofocus picks up your subject’s eyebrows or the tip of the nose then, because you’ve got such a narrow depth of field, the eyes will be blurred.

9. Macro

With macro photography autofocus has a hard time. The depth of field is so tiny that the camera has no idea what you want to focus on and the lens is likely to hunt wildly. You definitely must take control.

10. Composition with the ‘Rule of Thirds’

Many cameras have the autofocus spot fixed in the middle of the viewfinder. This means that if you’re composing with your subject at one of the classical ‘thirds’ positions it is likely to be out of focus.

In this image a centralised autofocus would not pick up the boat and, on top of that, it would have difficulty latching to the smooth water of the lake.

So … autofocus is brilliant but it’s not infallible. A good photographer knows when to take control of the camera to get great shots in challenging situations

Alistair Scott is an award-winning freelance photographer and writer who has travelled the world widely. He lived for 20 years in Africa, but is now based in Switzerland. His latest book is ‘The LowDown Guide to Family Photography’, which can be seen at www.alscotts.com/fampage

Post from: Digital Photography School - Photography Tips.

A Collection

A Collection

从 Beyond Megapixels 作者：Laura Charon

Hello, friends! It’s a crazy busy day, leading up to the crazy busy week I’ll have next week prepping for the holidays! So in light of the fact that I have to 1) brave the mall; 2) brave the post office; and 3) cook a ton of goodies, today’s entry is simply going to be a collection of photos that I’ve come across recently on Flickr Creative Commons, that I have found to be particularly interesting or well-composed. I hope you enjoy!

Reflections at the Lagoon

Peace Lily

Happy Christmas To All Boots (and family of Boots too)

A Cup of Bokeh, please?

Bow Wash

After the rain...

Heylipol Church, Tiree

Angel

A Collection

A Collection

从 Beyond Megapixels 作者：Laura Charon

Hello, friends! It’s a crazy busy day, leading up to the crazy busy week I’ll have next week prepping for the holidays! So in light of the fact that I have to 1) brave the mall; 2) brave the post office; and 3) cook a ton of goodies, today’s entry is simply going to be a collection of photos that I’ve come across recently on Flickr Creative Commons, that I have found to be particularly interesting or well-composed. I hope you enjoy!

Reflections at the Lagoon

Peace Lily

Happy Christmas To All Boots (and family of Boots too)

A Cup of Bokeh, please?

Bow Wash

After the rain...

Heylipol Church, Tiree

Angel

Lensbaby Soft Focus and FishEye Lens ...

Lensbaby Soft Focus and FishEye Lens First Impressions

从 Camera DojoCamera Dojo - Take better pictures! DSLR, Canon, Nikon, Lighting, Tutorials, Reviews » 作者：KerryG

Anyone who has been reading CameraDojo.com or listening to the podcast for a while should now that I might as well go to a meeting every week and say “Hi, My Name is Kerry, and I am a Lensbaby-aholic”. I absolutely LOVE my Lensbaby Composer and the Optic Swap system. When the folks at Lensbaby told me about their new Soft Focus and FishEye lenses, I begged them to get me some of the first off the assembly line. Lucky for me they arrived just as I was packing for a recent trip to New York.

This article is only going to be my first impressions of the lenses since I just got them and haven’t had a chance to use them in more diverse environments yet.

The Setup

For this initial use of the new lenses, I had a Canon 50D which has an APS-C lens so I don’t quite get the full effect of the FishEye lens, but still, it works quite well.

Unfortunately, the weather conditions weren’t ideal either since I had to brave 20 degree temps to walk around getting these shots (may not seem cold to some people, but I live in Southern California). With an overcast sky and snow on the ground, its not as if colors were popping as much as I would have liked, but you can’t beat a morning stroll through East Aurora New York in the morning, so off I went.

The Soft Focus Lens

Ok, this lens is NOT for everyone by any means, however, I absolutely love it! The soft focus lens diffuses the light coming into the lens by filtering through a series of small holes. The goal is not to create a completely defocused image, but to give it a softer quality. When I get home and get some more images, you will see how this can look with portraits. For now, I had limited subject matter to work with to demonstrate with.

The image here of the flower was the one shot I managed to snap off before throwing the camera in the suitcase and heading to the airport. While you can see plenty of detail, there is still a softness to it and the defocused background has a really beautiful look to it.

Here are some more shots with the soft focus lens:

Fish Eye Lens

A fish eye lens is another one of those lenses you don’t tend to keep on your camera much but when you need a REALLY wide angle, nothing can beat them. Since the Canon 50D does not have a full frame sensor you dont get a complete circular effect but the fish eye effect is still plainly visible. With some creative cropping and vignetting, you may not even realize a shot was taken with a fish eye.

Below is an example of a pre and post crop of the same image:

 

With a little cropping, the really distorted edges are far less noticeable.

Another thing you can do is use a fish eye to capture more of a scene than you could with a regular lens and then us Photoshop’s lens correction to straighten it out somewhat. The following images are before and after the lens correction was applied.

 

Here are some additional shots taken with the fish eye lens:

Summary

If you have a Lensbaby Composer or are thinking about getting one, the Fish Eye and Soft Focus lenses can be a terrific addition to your Optic Swap lens collection. Maybe they are even just the right excuse to go get a Composer now. For me, they are a very welcome addition to my collection and I cant wait to use them even more.

Top 10 Tips for Dynamite Digital Phot...

Top 10 Tips for Dynamite Digital Photography

作者：Guest Post

有 2 人喜欢此条目 - Josh Gunderson, digitalh

By Tom Grimm and Michele Grimm,
Authors of The Basic Book of Digital Photography: How to Shoot, Enhance, and Share Your Digital Pictures

Here are 10 easy ways to greatly improve your digital photographs and avoid the pitfalls that are common with today’s automatic cameras. Professional photographers Michele and Tom Grimm offer these and many more tips in their brand-new handbook, The Basic Book of Digital Photography. [Amazon]

1. Pay Attention to Composition.

Too often a picture lacks impact because your subjects seem too far away. Move closer or zoom in to concentrate attention on your main subject and to avoid unwanted elements that are distracting. Make certain you see nothing in the viewfinder or on the LCD screen that you don’t want in the final picture. Be especially alert for cluttered backgrounds. Finally, just before you shoot, check that the horizon appears level in your camera’s viewfinder or on the LCD screen.

2. Vary the Format of Your Pictures.

Cameras make pictures that are rectangular, not square, so you should remember to turn your camera vertically for appropriate subjects, such as portraits of people. In other words, don’t be so lazy that you always hold the camera horizontally. Appropriately, horizontal images are in the format called landscape, while the format for vertical shots is known as portrait.

3. Shoot, Shoot, Shoot.

If you used to shoot with a film camera, break the old habit of just making one or two exposures. The memory cards that are substitutes for film in digital cameras will hold hundreds of pictures and you can easily erase the images you don’t like. So shoot away until you get the perfect picture. A big bonus is that you won’t have to spend extra time at your computer fixing up mediocre shots with image-editing software.

4. Press the Shutter Release Button . . . Don’t Jab It.

More pictures are ruined because of camera shake than for any other reason. The main offense is jabbing or snapping your finger down on the shutter release (which jars the camera). It’s easy to avoid blurred pictures: Just remember to arch your shooting finger and slowly press or squeeze the shutter button. Also, be sure to hold your camera with two hands to help keep it steady.

5. Shoot with Flash Outdoors.

Pictures taken outdoors, especially of people and pets, are frequently better when you use your camera’s built-in flash. That’s because direct sunlight often causes annoying shadows on faces, particularly around the eyes. Flash “fills in” those shadows to provide uniform illumination and a more pleasing portrait. Also, to keep your subjects from squinting in bright sunlight, ask them to turn their backs to the sun. That puts their faces in shadow, which you’ll then illuminate with the flash.

6. Memorize the Shooting Range of Your Flash.
Although they are convenient, built-in flash units are not very powerful and underexposed flash pictures in dark places are often the result. To avoid underexposures (or overexposures) with your flash, memorize its operating range. How distant (or close) can your subject be for a proper exposure? The flash range of a point-and-shoot camera may only be 3 to 12 feet. Caution: the flash range will change as you adjust your camera’s zoom lens; check the instruction manual.

7. Set a Higher ISO for Sharper, Non-blurred Images, and Greater Flash Range.

Keep in mind that adjusting your camera’s ISO to a higher number, such as ISO 800 instead of ISO 100, automatically sets smaller lens openings for more sharply focused images, as well as faster shutter speeds for stop-action, non-blurry pictures. It also extends the maximum distance range of a built-in or dedicated flash unit. Unfortunately, a very high ISO, such as ISO 1600 or 3200 (if available) may cause unwanted effects in digital images called artifacts. Take some test pictures at different ISO settings to compare the results.

8. Read and Reread Your Camera Manual (and our Digital Photo Book).

Most new camera owners look at the instructions only once or twice, if at all. But modern digital cameras, whether point-and-shoot or SLR (single lens reflex) models, are not as simple as their advertisements suggest. Study the instruction booklet until you’re familiar with all of the camera’s buttons, symbols, and picture possibilities. If you lose the instructions or forget to bring them on a trip, log onto your camera manufacturer’s Web site and download a copy of the manual.

9. Compose Pictures with Your Viewfinder, Not the LCD.
Unless you’re taking close-ups, it is easier, faster, and steadier to compose pictures by using your camera’s viewfinder (if available) instead of the LCD screen. There is more support with the camera pressed to your face as you look through the viewfinder instead of trying to hold it steady at arm’s length while composing subjects on the LCD screen. Also, you won’t be bothered by bright light that makes it difficult to see images on the LCD.

10. Don’t Let the Date and Time Deface Your Pictures.
Make sure your camera is not set to automatically print the time and date of your shots on the front of your pictures; it will ruin their appearance. Besides, you should be aware that the time and date are embedded in every photo image file as hidden metadata that can be viewed at anytime with image-editing software on your computer.

©2009 Tom Grimm and Michele Grimm, authors of The Basic Book of Digital Photography: How to Shoot, Enhance, and Share Your Digital Pictures

Author Bios
Tom Grimm and Michele Grimm, authors of The Basic Book of Digital Photography: How to Shoot, Enhance, and Share Your Digital Pictures, are a husband-and-wife photojournalism team who have spent nearly four decades traveling the globe; the couple has visited every continent and more than 130 countries in search of the perfect photographic image. Their photographs and articles have been published worldwide in magazines and newspapers and on the Internet. The Grimms are authors and illustrators of thirteen adult and children’s books.

For more information, please visit www.TomGrimm.com and www.amazon.com.