Metanet Forums

I've finally started sorting out my some 26GB of photographs from the last 4 years. Below are a couple of (tonemapped) HDR pieces. The first one I took the base exposures for over the summer in the rocky mountains and just got around to processing. The second I did the base exposures for and processed just last night.

The first one is definitely the best, I know. I've been told that I should make the trees darker.
The second one isn't so good. I didn't have a tripod, so the base exposures were somewhat motion-blurred. it was also slightly hazy, which further blurred the images.

the images have been resized to 600px wide and compressed to 70% JPG quality to save loading time and page stretching. You can view the higher quality, full size versions at FlickR by clicking the image.





I'm pretty new to HDR. I was using photoshop and getting poor results, so I've just switched to Photomatix for HDR processing, which I really like.

Opinions? Comments? Advice?

I know next to nothing about the finer points of photography, but it seems to me like you know where your faults lie which is one of the most important parts of any creative art.

I like the pictures, especially the clouds above the mountains. Very dream like.

The first one is definitely the best. No doubt.
I like the clouds, especially at the spot where the blue is darkened and sort of silhouettes a thunder cloud (at least in my imagination). And I think that looks really good, and really brings out the focal point.

My 30 second outline.

O_o

That does look like a thunder cloud. I've never seen anything like that before...

o_O

I've wanted to climb the top of this bridge for a while, but I can't bring myself to do it.
I love how our city is lit up! How long did you expose this?

The base exposures were 1/3s, 1s, 3s, 3.5s, and 7s at f/4.5. They were then combined to HDR and tonemapped down to a normal image, so basically the best exposure is used for each area of the image so it's all well exposed. those were taken with my Nikon D40 DSLR at 32mm focal. Probably around Christmas I'm going back (the images were taken out the side of my grandma's apartment building) and I'll take my tripod and a longer lens, so I may have some more impressive stuff then.

I figure I'll keep posting new stuff to this thread, as that seems to be the popular format here. Tonight I'll be taking photos of my house w/ Christmas lights (I just finished putting them up), and those should be cool.

ha.. nice pics...
I just got a Canon EOS 20D
its pretty awesome yet still fairly old compared to the growing economy..
its about 9 months old.. (lol)
I'm also gonna start a picture topic.. I have some awesome ones..
urs are great too
and I love the city one!

Sorry, I can;t give any advice but I can say the first pic is great. Keep up the great work! You have a great imagination!

They're certainly attractive, but they're also quite generic. They seem like the pictures you would find on a puzzle box, y'know? They just didn't make a big impression for me.

Skyline wrote:They're certainly attractive, but they're also quite generic. They seem like the pictures you would find on a puzzle box, y'know? They just didn't make a big impression for me.

What?

That second picture looks crazy, like some of the buildings have been artificially rendered or something. Very impressive.

I'm a big fan of HDRImages. I've used them a lot as reflection maps when I've been doing my 3D rendering.

More photos!
No HDR in this set, but it's been snowing a lot lately and I took these right around my neighborhood.
There are full-size versions of some of these on Flickr. I think there isn't of one. PM me or post here if you want the full-size versions.

I don't like doing this usually but I don't want to be bothered with another topic and I think you might find these photos interesting, Jean-Luc. The first was taken up at the top reservoir on Mt. Tabor and the other was taken from near the top of the West Hills.





I like the one of the artichoke plants of yours. It was fun to see them covered in snow, since they are so abundant around the SE area and usually not covered in snow.

BE_nSPIRED wrote:manus australis if you just touch up the first one in paint.net, sharpen it just a whincy bit it would look great, its a little blurry

I actually much like the slight blur. It makes the picture a lot more pleasing to the eyes, interesting, unique, and ethereal.

I really enjoyed the artichoke photo; the rest, not so much.

Nice photography, guy wuth a random french name!

29403 wrote:random french name!

/me points at jean-luc's avatar and then at the USS Enterprise.

I really like these, Jean-Luc. Well done!

The only think I might suggest is to be careful to maintain a natural feel to your photos. Family pictures don't look good when they're forced and neither will anything else.

Manus australis, I really love both of them.

The snow is virtually all gone around my neighborhood now.

I'm going to be at a robotics event this weekend. I might get some interesting pics there.

I find this to be, by far, the best image in this thread.

I like it because the subject "pushes" out of the right side. Although the subject is prettymuch in the center, the rest of the branch is behind it, out of focus. Interesting!
Here are some tips (I have no idea how much you know about photography so I'm starting from square one, don't be insulted).

Rule of thirds. Imagine a 3 by 3 grid of squares. Now imagine the four corners of the middle square. These points are where the subject should go for an interesting photo.*
(pretend this diagram is good, lolz)


You may find, after choosing a subject, that you can't "make it pop" from the frame. How do you make a subject the subject? Depth of field. I would define depth of field as the depth, going straight out, that you are focusing on. Check out these bad** examples to show you what I mean:

This one has a bigger depth of field. More stuff is in focus. wtf is the subject?

This one has a shallow depth of field. Ah, the subject is the vase!


The difference between these is the aperture. A higher aperture value (less open) means a bigger depth of field, and a smaller aperture (more open) means a smaller depth of field. You can't use this trick on landscapes, but when you're shooting close up things like shit on a table or a portrait, a shallow depth of field is the way to go.

Also try shooting from funky angles, like from the ground or directly up the side of a building...
So yeah, try shiznit out, and remember, any tips you ever receive are guidlines. Have fun and break rules :).

*Not always the case. As I said, guidlines!
**I not only think these photos are really boring, but they are not great examples of depth of field, as both pictures are pretty shallow... damn my perfectionist tendencies!