The Ben'enator » HDR

HDR – Video? Yes Indeed.

admin — Fri, 10 Sep 2010 02:44:27 +0000

Online galleries are fully of over saturated HDR pictures that consists more of exposure blending that actual “High Dynamic Range” processing. Still, the effect is pretty interesting and if done properly – doesn’t look horrible and can enhance a photo. The downside is that many people overuse HDR and saturate too much for an unrealistic photo effect. While this is certainly good for illustration purposes – it isn’t always indicative of true “photography” – IMHO.

That being said – video has been left out of the loop – until now. Soviet Montage Productions has posted up some HDR video that they achieved by shooting with two Canon 5D Mk II cameras. In order to shoot the exact same image, they used a beam splitter to send the exact same image to each camera. The end result is pretty interesting.

HDR Video Demonstration Using Two Canon 5D mark II’s from Soviet Montage on Vimeo.

Although the effect on buildings, traffic and scenery looks pretty natural – the effect on people is a little different.

Canon To Do Good In-Camera HDR

admin — Sat, 12 Jun 2010 07:11:16 +0000

It looks like Canon is filing a patent to do some “good” in camera HDR in the near future and they have redone the way HDR is done in order to do this on-the-fly. Typically, High Dynamic Range (HDR) photography is done by post-processing a few different exposures onto a single image. Canon is doing things differently and now, you’ll be able to take photos like this or this photo by a single click of the shutter.

Photography Bay has more details and the initial impression is that it will be pretty decent. Time will tell, but I really like the ability to tweak and customize. Having it done with a single click will take out the creative process and then it becomes a standard image like every other picture snapped.

According to an exemplary embodiment of the present invention, preliminary image capturing is performed using the image capturing unit, and the exposure time is assigned to each pixel based on the result of the preliminary image capturing. Image capturing can thus be performed with a wide dynamic range without a loss of highlight detail and a loss of shadow detail. – USPTO Appl. No. 12/630,594, ¶¶ 11 & 14

HDR Updates

admin — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 23:56:08 +0000

I’m certainly no photographer, but I’ve had a bit of fun recently trying to pull off some HDR (High Dynamic Range) photos. For those of you not familiar with this, the process is really quite simple in principle. You take 3+ photos of the same subject at different exposure levels and then combine the images into one. One photo will be underexposed, one overexposed and one right smack dab in the middle. When you combine these with Photoshop CS2 or better, it will allow you to bring out the detail of all of the images and give you a bit of a surreal look. The amount of surreal is up to you.

When playing around with HDR, I prefer to go for a more realistic look like the other old barn below.

If you have and comments, questions or suggestions, please post them in the comments section below. As you can see I’m a total HDR n00b and I want to learn. I’ve read a few guides for sure, but I can bet there are some tweaks, tips and tricks to make photos even better. Please share!