Night HDR advice


tomboy87

Senior Member
Oct 12, 2010
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Dear all,

Can I use the same method during the day compared to night to shoot HDR ? At day I will use bracketing feature of 7f 0.7EV and shoot at burst mode to capture the 7 shots at once. At night I use the same method but the results seems not really pleasant. Should I use the bulb mode instead of bracketing at night ?


Thanks alot
 

here are my samples

DAY
p9180006070809101112ton.jpg


NIGHT
p9170006070809101112ton.jpg


The night shot looks weird
 

What do you mean with "not pleasant"? Keep in mind that you will need much slower shutter speeds at night. A tripod comes in handy here, together with a remote shutter release.
 

here are my samples

DAY

NIGHT
The night shot looks weird
Why? The day shoot would make any Geiger counter nervous. The night shot looks better to me.
Not every scene needs HDR. It is used when the dynamic range of the scene exceeds the dynamic range of the sensor.
 

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Actually i prefer the night shot than the first shot.
The first shot (day shot) is so uneven.. hmm it didnt work for me. But thats jut me.
:)
 

It looks fine to me. Learn to tweak around the various settings of your HDR software.
 

If it does not look like real life scene and look more like cartoon, it is bad HDR.

Good HDR is you can't easily tell its HDRed.
 

so sorry, it won't work for me, I can't look at the images for more than a second.

please pay attention on working good composition as basic foundation, this are the building blocks for good photos
 

Hi TS,

HDR in dayshot is overdone, which results in halo. Some would say it's radioactive.
I don't really understand your meaning of "not really pleasant" or "weird" either. Not sure which HDR software you are using. If it's photomatix, you can choose the different methods to achieve the type of "HDR" look that you would like. Your night shot seems to have much noise, did you turn on Noise Reduction feature on? it basically continue to take a shot but with shutter closed, so takes 2x the normal time to process a shot.
And yes, please work on your composition as well, I don't actually see a need for the HDR on either shots, on another angle or subject perhaps. The essentials of HDR is to improve the dynamic range (ratio between the darkest and lightest) which the sensor is limited to, hence "high dynamic range".
Shoot more and learn more:)
 

Dear all,

Can I use the same method during the day compared to night to shoot HDR ? At day I will use bracketing feature of 7f 0.7EV and shoot at burst mode to capture the 7 shots at once. At night I use the same method but the results seems not really pleasant. Should I use the bulb mode instead of bracketing at night ?

The basic rules of traditional photography applies to HDR photography as well,that is composition,lighting and exposure.
See the quality of light,the early hours of morning and evening ,where the light is even.That does not mean that other times of day can't be useful.It depends on the subject and background.

Your eye can see 11 f-stops versus 6 f-stops of the camera's sensor of dynamic range,this is where hdr comes in ,merging the different photos into one where the dynamic range can be shown.What HDR does is lightening the picture to see details so exposure is critical.For instance the day time picture with the hazy or overcast sky because the meter is averaging it does not meter the sky accurately and
with hdr lightening the details the sky is technically overexposed so no detail can be seen.Same with the night shot.Since you only see details
with light and therefore in a night sky there is only darkness,no details can be seen.Hdr tends to lighten the sky again.Again the composite
pictures needed for hdr may be overexposed so you can see the details in the rooms and multistorey carpark are overblown.When the highlights are overblown or lightened the picture tends to look flat and uninteresting.So far I have not seen a HDR of a night shot for reasons explained but pictures taken at dusk,that is the transition period from daytime to night time lasting only 30 minutes say from 6.30pm to 7.00/7.30pm. By the time you setup the shot you may not have much time left so have to work fast. :)

Coming back to composition although you are using wideangle,the subject (hdb housing) is not interesting,I know this is just a test shot
but if you crop it closer say only the main foreground block or the greenery on the left and cut off most of the sky,it would look more interesting.You can see more details.You are also using a standing straight on angle,try a different angle or height.

Lastly not all pictures benefit from hdr processing.Read a good book on hdr,I recommend Rick Sammon's HDR photography secrets for digital
photographers.The review link is below:

Book Review: Rick Sammon's HDR Photography Secrets for Digital Photographers | Picture Soup
 

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dont be kiasu.... ONE thread is enough

other thread deleted

I realized I posted on the wrong section. I posted again here but before that I already closed the thread and tried to delete the thread. I duno why it is still there. Sorry
 

Night shot looks ok to me.
Its the day shot that is OOT.
Unless your definition of HDR is for those type of OTT effects. (which can be valid)


Try to play around with your HDR program settings to get a more natural look w/o halos.
 

I realized I posted on the wrong section. I posted again here but before that I already closed the thread and tried to delete the thread. I duno why it is still there. Sorry

Both these sections are actually the WRONG section. The correct one is one of the gallery sections.