PDA

View Full Version : Long exposure brook



Rene Quenneville
06-21-2009, 06:43 PM
I took this picture last friday on my way back from New-Hampshire. It is at the Flume in Franconia Notch State Park. Wow, what a great place for photographers. Shame on me, I did not have my tripod!!!

I tried this 3 exposures HDR composite by holding my breath. It was a rainy/overcast day. I did not need to use a ND filter to get these nice blured waterfalls. Please note that the whites are not clipped on the original PSD.

Please give me your comments.

1/4 s (3 exposures +/- 1 stop)
f/7.1
ISO 100
18mm
D200 with 18-200 VR lens (VR was a must in this case)

Robert Amoruso
06-21-2009, 07:05 PM
Rene,

You did well HH and the HDR is great - not evident at all. I have been here and you are right, great place to photograph. Good diagonal line of the falls through the frame, soft light and great saturation of the greens you get with the light. Nice work.

chris Bycroft
06-22-2009, 05:43 AM
Excellent photo, great greens. I would not have realised this was handheld if you did not say. It seems pretty sharp for an HDR photo. Are you using photomatics? I may try doing handheld HDR more often. I did not think they were suppose to work so well.

Rene Quenneville
06-22-2009, 08:04 AM
Chris,

I use Photomatix and it does a good job aligning the frames, most of the time. When the picture is sharp near and far it does an amazing job. It tends to have a hard time in blured areas.
Tis picture is very sharp for a 3 exposure HDR Hand Held. It is not my every day experience. I sure recommend to use a tripod to maximize your success rate.
In summary, if you do your hyperfocal distance right and use a tripod, you will be amazed by what HDR can do!

Rene Quenneville
06-22-2009, 09:02 AM
It is important to keep in mind that we can use HDR to reveal midtones & shadows while keeping a natural look. We see too many poorly rendered HDRs that display a cartoonish look. Sometimes this look is appropriate, but in the picture above, I do not think it would fit. I have enclosed to this post the basic picture (the properly exposed within the 3 frames). We ca see that there is a lot of details missing in the shadows and that the colors are a little dull. The foreground rock to the left is ok but the woods behind are too dark. In this kind of situation, I like to use HDR.

José Rodríguez
06-22-2009, 09:07 AM
Impressed about the technical details involved. I should never said it was a HDR. Thanks for sharing this!

Morkel Erasmus
06-22-2009, 12:47 PM
stunning work here! like how the HDR brought details out of the shaded areas of forest. you did very well for HH. love it, those greens make me want to lie down there...

Fabs Forns
06-23-2009, 01:35 PM
Great use of Photomatix, Rene. I personally like the original's framing since it has more grounding at the bottom.
The extra half an inch makes a difference for my taste.

Roman Kurywczak
06-23-2009, 08:01 PM
Hi Rene,
Agree with the others that you did a very nice job with the HDR. I like the water flow and the way you minimized the forest. The large Rock on the left really helps balance this for me. Just an FYI.....you could have used the split ND upside down here......to tone down the FG and open up the shadowed forest. Just another way without the HDR. Nicely done and glad you shared some insight into HDR.