Downtown park HDR

[Rene Quenneville]

This is a 3 exposure HDR I took this summer. There is not much done outside of Photomatix. The cartoonish feel is from HDR settings. It was in between 2 showers and there was a bright hazy light and an overcast sky. I love those conditions of contrasty side lights and sky patterns.

Please give me your comments.

1/20 f/18
32 mm
ISO 400
3 exposurs of 0.7 EV
no flash

[Roman Kurywczak]

Hey Rene,
The "cartoonish" look you mention from the HDR is either liked or disliked......and I happen to like it in this image as it works for a number of reasons. First......you did a nice job with the composition and the pop of the blues you got from the HDR really balnces well with the rest of the almost monochromatic look of the rest of the image. The trees bookending the image and the angry sky also add to the overall scene. I may lighten the blue top of the sculpture? a bit.....but this is very minor to a nicely composed and well thought out image.

[CliveTonge]

Hello Rene,
I like the composition and the contrasty effect from the HDR. I am surprised that there are Hightlights in the sky that still look blown out, I thought the using an HDR technique stopped that.
How quickly did you take the three pictures. I see a flag on the building that looks perfect. I would think that it would have moved between shots.
Clive

[Rene Quenneville]

Thank you very much for your comments. It realy helps me tremendously to practice my eye and develop composition skills. It is very much appreciated.
As for your questions Clive, with HDR you have controle over a wider dynamic range but you can still decide to blow the highlights or burn the shadows. In the case of this picture this is a conscious choice because this setting allowed a more dramatic look on the blue structure.
As for the flag, there is an option in the Photomatix software that allows for taking care of moving objects, it basically reconstructs the pixels to have the flag look sharp. I always shoot in continuous high shutter at 5 frames per second. This way, I minimize the object movement, which could be flags, clouds or waves.

I hope my answer clarifies.

[Robert Amoruso]

Rene,

I think architectural landscapes really lend themselves to the HDR look and you did well here for the reasons mentioned above by Roman and Clive.