I'm addicted

I am so addicted to photo taking and photo editing...i think the interest is growing each day. Especially when i am given more time to do some personal readings these days...

I just learned a new technique, called High dynamic range (HDR) imaging, its basically a set of techniques that allows a greater dynamic range of luminances between light and dark areas of a scene than normal digital imaging techniques. The intention of HDRI is to accurately represent the wide range of intensity levels found in real scenes ranging from direct sunlight to shadows.

In short, sometimes when you take a pic under strong lightings, you might need to sacrifice between the structure or the sky...For example below pic, the sky is the focus..the building under-exposed

In order to distribute exposure to all area, this method was developed to produce a high dynamic range image from a set of photographs taken with a range of exposures and then combine all the pictures together and perform tone mapping to the pic. End result, all the areas are saturated with colors....

Tutorial are here, quite easy, actually you could do it even with a compact camera...

http://backingwinds.blogspot.com/2006/10/how-to-create-professional-hdr-images.html

My 1st experience

Right after gym, accompanied by Gene, using my tripod, i manage to snap some shots under the hot sun. Bascially, i took 3 shots with different exposure(-2,0,+2) of the same angle and building.

Back home, using Photomatix Basic, i combined all 3 pics into one and performed tone mapping. somehow the choice given using this freeware is quite limited. I can't do detailed toning of the shots. Results as below.

Can see that the color are all well saturated and no dark spots due to under exposure rite? Somehow i believed, there are more work to be done. A very good example of a well toning natural HDR would eventually look like this.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/sworrall/1358328521/sizes/m/

Some would prefer to exaggerate their pictures like the link below.

http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2008/03/10/35-fantastic-hdr-pictures/

Nonetheless, its really individual preference but in my opinion, by overdoing it, it destroy the purpose of photography..and the purpose of the shots.

And here is a shot i took on my way home. This is a normal shot with zero editing..just some vignetting of the corners.

Enjoy reading =)