HDR photography has been around for a while and continues to be a ‘love it’ or ‘hate it’ type of thing.

I am not one of those people who avoid HDR like the plague and, at best, I have dabbled around with multiple exposure images.  I do enjoy playing around with it and can most definitely admire the skill of photographers who create quality HDR photographs but is there not an argument for non HDR images?

What if we think of it this way.

An HDR image is made up of various exposures in order to create an image that closer resembles what we see with our eyes.  The reason for this is that your digital cameras sensor cannot see the same range of light that your eyes can.  In other words, by  taking multiple exposures you are trying to ‘fix’ the camera’s shortcoming in creating images that mimic what we see.

Now, instead of arguing whether HDR is an easy way to cheat the camera’s inabilities or a lazy way of photography let’s rather take another approach.

Why not embrace the camera’s dynamic range.  Yeah, use the camera’s inability to capture the entire spectrum from dark to light.

Check this out.  The photograph of a lion is an HDR image.

I created three differently exposed images from the original RAW file and blended them to create on high dynamic range image.  Looks realistic enough doesn’t it?  Another benefit is that the dappled shade is a lot less distracting when compared to the original image.

No problem so far but think about this.  Even though I did a very quick HDR composite I spent a lot more time on the computer creating the picture than I did metering, composing the image and clicking the shutter.  More PC time than actual camera time.  Yeah yeah I know.  It’s a necessary evil but do you agree with that?

Now coming back to embracing your camera’s limited dynamic range.  Compared to the above HDR image, what are your thoughts on the following photograph?

This is the photograph I was hoping to get when we saw the lion in Madikwe.  By metering and manually exposing for the highlights in the frame, in this case the lion’s nose, I ended up deliberately underexposing the darks in the frame rendering it as almost pure black leaving a dramatic and moody image.

Better than the HDR version?  Guess it depends on who you ask but I feel it is still a good image.

The important thing here is that there was minimal post processing done to this image.  No blending of exposures.  No S-curve adjustments.  It’s just a photograph.  Plain and simple.

If you know your camera it is not difficult to create dramatic exposures.  The difficult thing is to ‘see’ the subtleties of light which will translate to dramatically exposed images.  A shaft of light or dappled shade does not have to mean bad images.  Think about the light, expose correctly and you will find images everywhere!

There are arguments for and against HDR but whatever side of the fence you sit do not forget the basics.  Don’t forget what you can do with your camera.  Don’t forget photography.

What are your thoughts?

Gerry

First and foremost, I want to clear a certain disillusion that has entered people’s minds about HDR.  It is in no way some miraculous technique to make a mediocre photo an amazing one ,neither is it the gateway to becoming a great digital landscape photographer. Post processing will always play a minor role in creating great photographs and the effort will always be in the planning and shooting.

Why do we use HDR? Because a camera can’t always capture the dynamic range of light in most natural scenes in one exposure , which results in areas of the image that have no detail due to shadows or highlights. Traditionally we would use graduated neutral density filters to balance the exposure, but they are rather expensive and limited by many situations found in landscapes everywhere, like uneven horizons, tall objects like trees, mountains etc. When digitally blending 2 or more images we are basically simulating an ND filter, but we have full control over how the graduation of the filter would have been. HDR opens new doors in landscape photography, but I still prefer to use graduated filters and do where ever I can. Moving objects within an image creates a lot of problems for HDR blending, because your images have to be identical ( apart from the exposure ). You can get away with it to a certain extent, but cameras are still very primitive compared to the human eye and sometimes we simply can’t capture what we saw.
The basic concept of HDR is to capture the total dynamic range of the scene ( when it is greater than the camera can capture in one exposure ) in multiple exposures and combine select parts of the various exposures using Photoshop.
The first thing we need is the multiple exposures of a scene. In most natural scenes, the sky is brighter than the land/foreground and if you expose for the sky, the foreground is too dark and if you expose for the foreground then the sky is too bright. So we take a separate exposure for each.
The easiest way is to use your camera’s AEB (auto exposure bracketing – see camera manual ) function. It allows you to capture a sequence of 3 exposures, each a certain f-value apart. In most situations, you simply need one exposure for the sky and one for the foreground as shown below.

If this is the case, meter the sky and foreground separately, check the difference and set the bracketing so that the exposures are that f-value apart so that you get an ideal exposure for each. The 3rd doesn’t matter and can be deleted. So if the sky is 2 stops brighter than the foreground, set the bracketing for 0; -2; +2 and expose it for either sky or FG and you will have the 2 necessary exposures in your sequence.
Sometimes however, a nasty highlight or shadow requires a 3rd exposure as shown below.

Once again, meter the sky and FG separately, set the AEB so that you get an adequate exposure for both and check if the 3rd exposure has the detail in the shadow/highlight area you require. If not, simply capture a darker/brighter exposure by setting a single exposure manually or do a whole sequence manually. Shooting for it comes naturally and you quickly learn with experience, so don’t worry too much about it.


In a short sentence : You need multiple exposures of which the darkest image may have no highlights and the brightest image may have no shadows.

Usually 2 exposures are enough for most scenes as I will show in the first example.


Blending a 2 exposure image

1.  We start by just opening our 2 images that we are going to blend. RAW adjustments should already have been applied and make sure your layers window is open (F7).

Now, simply for practicality reasons, stack the exposures ( in this case 2 ) from darkest to brightest by using the move tool (v) and simply dragging the one image onto the other one. Hold shift in as you drop the image and it will align itself within the frame. You have now stacked the 2 layers and you will see the 2 thumbs in your layers window. Clicking on the eye to the left of the top thumb will hide the top layer and reveal the layer below.

You can now close the bright exposure as you have it in a layer on the darker one. Maximize the window simply for better viewing. You will be working on a layer mask so that any mistakes can be easily corrected. At the bottom of the layers window there’s a rectangle with a circle in, click on it to add a layer mask (make sure your top layer is selected ) to the top layer.

To simulate the graduated filter, we use a gradient on the layer mask. Press G to select your gradient tool. Check at the top of the window for the following (if everything is on default, it will be right )

1. The gradient type must be foreground to background ( top left )
2. Orientation of the gradient must linear ( left )
c. Mode – normal
d. Opacity – 100%

Press D to make sure your FG/BG color is on default. 
You will now blend the two exposures. Where you click the gradient tool, the gradient will start, you then drag it to where you want the gradient to end. You can drag the line at any angle and the gradient will be in that direction. Below I have simply dragged a gradient onto a white mask to show you. You can see how the gradient starts where I clicked, transitions over the path I dragged and ends where I released the mouse. The black pixels will reveal what’s on the layer below them. The pure black will reveal everything with the gray pixels resulting in a smooth transition that fades the 2 exposures into each other.

For this specific image, the gradient will transition over about 40% of the image at a slight angle (90 degrees to the horizon ). The line I dragged to create the gradient looks like this.

The gradient will look like this:

You can now touch up the gradient by painting on the mask with a brush. Once you are happy with the blend, you should flatten the image and treat it as one exposure. Doing separate adjustments to the blended layers can sometimes make a nasty unwanted transition between the layers visible.

You can now do your usual processing steps to get to the final result.

Blending a 3 Exposure Image

Stack the 3 exposures from dark to bright as explained above and give the 2 top layers each a layer mask. To give separate layers a mask, simply click on the layer thumb in the layers window and then click on the add layer mask button. Once you’ve added the layer masks, you can click on the eye of the top layer to hide it as we will work on the sky first. Your layers window should now look as shown below.

90% of the time the 3rd exposure is to deal with a highlight around the sun and it is always a big circular blob so to blend it we will use the radial gradient. Choose the gradient tool ( g ) and now select the radial gradient in the top tab (refer to point 4 above – tab b – 2nd icon) and set it to a 50% opacity (tab d) to begin with. The necessary opacity depends on the image.

Now drag the gradient from the centre of the highlight outwards. Usually the transition has to be quite big so you can drag it as far as you can. It’s a trial and error process and practice makes perfect. Below you can see the gradient I settled for and how it revealed the detail in the highlight area from the darker exposure below.

You can now simply blend in the foreground of the image as explained in the previous example. Remember to select the correct gradient again as shown in point 4 above. When starting out with this stuff, the most common errors people usually make is simply not having the correct layer or gradient tool or palette colors selected so always double check your tools when something isn’t working as it should!

Here are a few more of my images, some of which uses the same techniques as mentioned above.

‘More Boats’

‘The Bay of Fire’

‘Cliche’

‘Victoria Bay’

‘Desert Storm’

‘At Rest’

If you have any questions of thoughts please feel free to comment!

Hougaard Malan

Hougaard’s Links

• Website: Hougaard Malan:  South African Landscape Photography
• Facebook Group: Hougaard Malan Photography
• iStock Photo: Purchase Images

Welcome to Monday!  I was originally going to do a Daily Photo but decided to post a few images instead.  Why?  Well, we had quite a good weekend out in the field and I don’t really have enough time to write too much right now so posting images will have to do.   Also working on a few other, more detailed, posts so will catch up with the writing then.

This lioness was extremely aware of a big male mating with another member of the pride close by and was very alert.  She sat upright in an open plain which was fantastic as it sorted out the background to the image.  I photographed her with a Nikon 80-200 f/2.8 lens, keeping the aperture as wide as possible in order to make here pop from the background.  A very simple composition with no distracting elements.  Sometimes plain and simple just works.

Then there was the two zebras having a good go at each other.

We sat for almost an hour watching these two guys sparring with quite a few interesting shots as the result.  A couple of things made it interesting.  For one, the overcast conditions made for a very diffused light which was occasionally completely overpowered by the, almost, midday sun.  The two monochromatic mammals were then also moving onto and off of a white dirt road which made for some very strange light bouncing up from the road whenever the sun popped.  It was almost as if the were dancing over a reflector.  This made for quite a tricky exposure.  The answer was to use centre weighted metering, centre the two zebras and hope for the best!

One more thing that made this an ok image rather than a great one is the background.  The obvious focus in this image is the zebra, and on a smaller scale the teeth on the opponents neck, but the background is… well, horrible.  This in one of the major aspects to keep in mind in wildlife photography and unfortunately something that comes into play, in the challenging sense of the word, in Madikwe.  Madikwe produces some truly spectacular wildlife sightings but there is a lot of shrubs and bushes.  This can sometimes make photography quite challenging but not impossible.  I still find it quite amusing that a well respected wildlife photographer once said to me that Madikwe is bad for wildlife photography.  Everybody is obviously in title to their own opinion but I believe that as the photographer it is up to you to make a scene work or not.  Sure, it is a whole lot easier of your subject is standing in an open grass plain with a beautiful sky in the background but you should never get lazy.  Think about your shots and what you want to do with them.  Wildlife photography, by default, is quite challenging so make it work.  Oh, and Madikwe is fantastic for wildlife photography if you are willing to think about your images!!

Was not sure whether to post this image or not.  Perhaps a little too much?  A thunderstorm was moving towards us as we were heading back to the lodge.  The horizon suddenly opened up, allowing the setting sun to blaze through and light up the sky.  It looked as if there was a massive veld fire raging just over the hill.  The actual scene was truly spectacular with very intense colors and a huge tonal range.  I quickly hopped out and shot three hand held shots with my wide angle lens which I then merged into a single file, very similar to what Morkel Erasmus wrote about in his guest post last week.  Creating HDR images with scenes which has a lot of color is a tough one but I reckon, no jokes now, that this is pretty damn close to what we saw.  It was breath taking!

Ok, so that is me not having time to write too much!  Oh yeah, I have also changed the blog slightly in that you can now view the two latest posts right on the front page.  The slider at the top, below the slideshow, can still be used to flick though the latest posts and on the bottom of the page you can view the latest posts per category.  Hope that helps.

See ya tomorrow!

Gerry

I must be honest, I was a bit taken aback when Gerry asked me to be write a “guest photographer” blog for Photo-Africa.  After all, I am the one with the newish blog supposed to be asking guys like Gerry to post guest blogs on my page.  Nevertheless, I am honoured to do just that.

I guess my fascination with photography goes back to my school years.  I was always intrigued by that “makes-you-want-to-be-there” shot – you know? The typical, idyllic sunrise/sunset over the Snake River (a la Ansel Adams), or the golden light on a Kalahari Lion in the morning.  Those shots that make you wonder what the heck you are doing sitting in an office…

I had been raised in a family that was constantly looking for a reason to go to the African bush or to the ocean.  Annual trips to Kruger cemented a love for nature deep within me that is hard to explain to people who just don’t get it that you can laughingly slap the dust from your face, sit around a fire and listen to the awakening bush as the night draws near.

I had enjoyed taking photos with my ‘advanced’ point-and-shoot (I still have my trusty Kodak Z612 – it’s now permanently in my wife’s handbag for those rare moments when I don’t have a large camera slung around my neck), but it was not until purchasing my first DSLR camera in January 2009 when it all ‘clicked’ into place for me – pun intended.  Much like my picking up the guitar at age 17, it was a decision I had put off for much too long, I would come to realise.

Not long after starting to hone my skills as a wildlife and avian photographer – two fields which had become my primary focus, I started dabbling in proper landscape photography again – and was amazed by the complexity it entailed.  My constant yearning for growth in my new hobby-cum-obsession had me reading, browsing and posting like wildfire on various internet photography forums.  It wasn’t too long before I stumbled upon HDR photography.  If you don’t know what that is yet – it’s an acronym for High Dynamic Range.

A short synopsis is basically this – HDR is the use of various methods to blend multiple exposures of a single scene or shot in order to better capture the dynamic range of the scene (since your eye can handle much more dynamic range than a camera can with a single exposure).  For a great explanation and tutorial (not to mention some stunning HDR work), have a look at www.stuckincustoms.com.

All of a sudden I knew it – I had found my niche…my ability to make those ‘wow’ photos and to convey more accurately what I was seeing with my eyes, and even push the artistic boundaries a bit.  Since discovering this methodology, I have started to explore a great number of ways and application areas within photography to apply it to. It obviously doesn’t work with EVERY shot, but when it does work, boy does it come together nicely.

I will show you an example posted recently on my blog (www.saffascapes.blogspot.com). We had the privilege to hike the famed Fish River Canyon hiking trail in Namibia. On the morning of our departure, we spent some time at the main lookout point overlooking this majestic piece of earth. It was hazy and even drizzling in parts over the canyon, which made the photos come out dullish. Here is an out-of-camera shot for example.

Now – taking three exposures at different exposure brackets (typically -1; 0; +1 or -2; 0; +2 or a combination of both), and blending them together – you get this:

Amazing difference right??

Now, it’s one thing to apply it to landscapes where you can fairly comfortably take 3 to 7 exposures in quick succession without much changing (given that you’re tripod-mounted and the wind isn’t pelting at 100km/h!)…but my mind eventually started racing…what about applying this to other nature shots, like wildlife shots? Sure – you would get very few instances where the particular subject would stand perfectly still through multiple exposures…but that’s where the beauty of RAW comes in. By carefully playing around with the settings in your RAW converter, you will be able to ‘generate’ 3 exposures or more of the same wildlife scene, which would be good enough to use in generating your HDR image.

Let’s do this by way of an example…

Here is the out-of-camera shot of a cheetah we found walking along the Auob riverbed in the Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park.

The sun was behind some clouds, hence the dull appearance in lighting. No problem! I quickly generate one shot over-exposed and another which is under-exposed by 1 stop.

Now comes the tricky part, I pull all 3 images into a clever piece of software called Photomatix. There are various ways to skin this cat (pun once again, intended). A favourite among landscape photographers is to blend the exposures in Photoshop using layers and gradient masks. I like using that method as well, but for most shots I just like the ‘punch’ that Photomatix delivers as it renders your HDR for you.

Within Photomatix there are quite a lot of tweaks with which you have to experiment a lot since they have different effects on various photos. Once I’m happy with the result, I generate my HDR image. This, however, often looks very ‘plastic’, flat or oversaturated, depending on which tweaks I applied. I bring this image back into Photoshop for some more post-processing. I typically use a lot of curves, selective colour and selective noise reduction (Photomatix loves that noise!) to get the final image. I might even layer it upon the original exposures and punch back some detail as needed.

The end-result? A cheetah image that really pops, having an almost 3D look and feel to it.

Well, there you have it…a not-so-brief quick overview of how I get to my images – some of them.  As I said, I don’t apply HDR to every shot I take…that would be plain ignorant.  I do apply it to shots that have the potential to be “wow” shots, but just need to have the “oomf” brought to the fore. I am far from mastering it – but I do believe I’ve found something which sits nicely with what I want to achieve as a photographer, and I enjoy doing it.

I have plenty that turned out disastrous, but here are some of my other HDR results that have worked.  

I hope that these images inspire you to push the boundaries in your area of photographic interest. I will keep pushing mine!

Morkel Erasmus

Morkel’s Links

• Blog: SAFFASCAPES
• Facebook Group: Morkel Erasmus Photography

African sunrises are spectacular and sometimes seem to carry on forever.

Photographing these amazing colors sometimes turns out to be quite a disappointing exercise as the images do not always show your viewer what you saw.  Had an experience like this a few morning ago.  Sat watching the sun rise behind a dead leadwood and shot off a few frames.  Actually it was the same tree in which the bird in the previous post was sitting.

Had a bit of fun playing with the images afterwards.  ‘Playing’ because I did this all in less than 4 minutes purely to show the differences between the original image, a Lightroom-ed image and an HDR image.  Here goes:

The above image is the RAW file without any work done on it.  This is what you would have gotten if you were shooting JPEG as well.  Ok-ish colors but zero details in the shadow.  If your goal was to shoot a straight out silhouette, good attempt.

The above image is exactly the same RAW file that has been adjusted slightly in Lightroom.  Nothing fancy here.  Simply tweaked the following sliders:

• Fill Light
• Clarity
• Vibrance
• Saturation
• Brightness
• Post Crop Vignette Amount
• Feather

Done.  Literally took no more than 30 seconds, and no fancy stuff in Photoshop, but it makes quite a big difference to the final image.  Is it better?  Well that will depend on who you ask.  This you can only answer for yourself.   What were you trying to do with the image?  What did you want to show?

Just out of interest I created a three exposure, handheld HDR image of the same tree.

Definitely a lot more punch and dynamic range.  Is it better?  Again, who are you asking?  What was the goal?  Pure documentary style photography or photography as an art?

I know there are a lot of people out there who think that HDR photography is straight from the devil but I still quite enjoy the possibilities.  (Hi, my name is Gerry and I shoot HDR.)  If you take time to plan your images and take time to properly process them to achieve a slightly more natural look than the results can be brilliant!

Not always, but definitely sometimes.

What do you think?  Which do you prefer and why?

Until next time.

Gerry