I used to love the surreal effect of HDR myself. Once I found out how to really take advantage HDR, I went with a more realistic approach myself. This photo is HDR, but you really can't tell.

<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/haycon/1308369922/" title="Nikon_D80_09022007_1406_7_8 by haycon, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1357/1308369922_8253934c09_o.jpg" width="670" height="1000" alt="Nikon_D80_09022007_1406_7_8" /></a>

 

^^ wow....great pic. what program and settings did you use on that? what f settings and lens did you use on that? judging on the focusing, i would imagine that you used a f of 4.0 or below....looks like a cropped 18mm shot.

i just started the HDR stuff, but the pics dont come out nearly as sharp.

 

yeah its a nice shot but like you said... you really can't tell its an HDR.

I'll try a few "toned down" ones later on and see how they come out... i need a few more hours to really try and get the feel of the photomatix software.

 

Conrad that shot is great.

EXIF
Image Date: 2007:09:02 21:11:10
Focal Length: 50.0mm
Aperture: f/5.6
ISO equiv: 100

 

Nice shots of the BMW's...I've defected recently as well

 

That is how an HDR should look most of the time, IMO. Nice job.

 

nice is that your 5 series in your avatar? what'd you get... a 535?

 

Few HDR's from our Chicago meet yesterday.

 

Great work! I would love to know what your HDR settings were.

 

WTF kinda crystal ball are you working with?

 

Exposures were:

ISO 100
F 8
Started at 1/125 on each and went up 3 full stops and down 3 full stops from there.

 

Photomatix or CS3 or something else? What were your setting in that? I really like the effect (or lack thereof!)

 

you make it sound like that's a bad thing... it's not.

 

ooooooh


photomatix

strength was like 70
color sat was 70
and light smoothing was at medium

 

i guess so... but if im gonna make it an hdr and take the time to do it, i want it to look like it

 

ic

 

ps. the HDR effect on your engine bay makes it look old, weathered, and dirty. do you want it to look like that? :P

 

Agreed.

heres the rest Conrad took. I love his style. https://acurazine.com/forums/showpos...64&postcount=1

 

LOL

it is dirty!

 

then why'd you take pics of it, and furthermore, make them into HDR's???

 

hahaha


so you think this is better?

 

 

ok fair enough... i'll start shooting HDR's like this.

PS that is a single exposure HDR

 

Look - there is an infinite amount of ways to do a shot. And that's the beauty of it. Do whatever you want to do. Use criticism to your advantage and make any adjustments as you feel needed. But not necessarily.

 

yah i know... just always see so many beautiful pics all over and mine never seem to turn out like that. I guess you are your own worst critic but... i miss shooting film where there was only 1 way to shoot it and it all looked the same.

 

I wanna share my experience with HDR because I think it was a good learning experience. After I first tried it I had this extreme fascination with it. And I wanted to keep taking em. I believe I wrote something like "HDR has opened my eyes, I don't know how I can go back to regular again" or something. Obviously I wasn't being entirely serious there but I was admittedly fascinated with it. This feeling lasted only so long. Now, it's like, there is the exaggerated HDR look that a large number of people (still) seem to love, but there is also a more realistic style such as Conrad's terrific shot above. HDR doesn't necessarily have to "look" like an HDR.

 

yeah i got ya.


SEE... YOU SHOULDA COME TO THE MEET ON SATURDAY SO YOU COULDA TOLD ME THIS IN PERSON!

 

yea lol. just got too damn lazy.

 

i was the same way when i first stumbled into HDR..i was fascinated with the surreal look of it...now i like the more subtle look like the one conrad posted..not to hijack..but here's one i did a while back..

 

+1 ... used to take some overly done HDRs ... I still have somewhat of the surreal effect, but I would say it's slightly more on the realistic side

 

haha a broken one.

although i wasn't toooo far off on the f

still learning

 

Here ya go, my friend took some new pics after the drop...he just started using HDR a couple months ago also, so he's still into the surreal look too.

http://www.e90post.com/forums/showthread.php?t=132334

 

WOW, that is an amazing picture!

 

So that's from a RAW?

 

I guess I might as well post mine up too. It was my 3rd time doing HDR stuff, I guess mine falls in the middle.

 

hey Badger have you read this?

http://stuckincustoms.com/2006/06/06/548/

if not, I suggest you do - it's some good info and I think it'll help you.

 

thanks bud i will.


this thread is turning into a "post your own HDR" thread jack

 

That guy is generally on the stylized school of HDR, I mean, the ones that look like HDR. But he does have some more realistic looking ones. But seeing how you do have an interest in doing HDR's that look like HDR's, I think it'll be a good information source for you.

 

Can you tell the difference now??

 

much better!! did you check out that stuckincustoms link? Looks like the key was increasing the light smoothing eh?

btw the first shot wasn't too bad. some of your others were the ones that I thought were too much. try it on some of those and let's see how they come out!