Colosseum and other HDR's from Italy

By no means all, or the best...except the Colliseum shots....I brought my 1D Mark IV, 3 lenses, and tripod with me for a 3 week tour of LOTS of Italy. And my 3 yr old, too!!! Here are a couple of samples for people to check out. the HDR's were processed with the new HDR Efex from NIK software. My opinion, it is a much better program than Photomatix...except that there are way more options for tweaking!! I think all these shots were taken with my Mark IV and Nikon 14-24G with Novoflex chipped adapter from 16-9.net. An AWESOME combination...blows my 16-35ll away(which is gone BTW).


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And a couple of non-HDR's, too. Shot with same Camera, lens combo....


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Great shots. Well done mate.





Wally

Thanks so much Wally. The quality on some of the smaller ones isn

(The quality on some of the smaller ones isn

Hi Wally. NO, you can

G

Hi Steve. I use HDR Efex as a plug-in through LR3(I could use it through CS5, too). I do just a little tweaking in LR3, then select the photos you want(I usually do 5 shot HDR), then hit export and LR3 exports them to HDR Efex. It is very user friendly(but there is a lot of sliders and such), and when your done, you hit save, and it is re-imported back into LR3 ino the same spot as the originals!! Pretty easy, really. I think you will really like it!!


Good Luck,


Gregg

Inspired me to try HDR! Great shots!

Thank you DoggieDoc...i appreciate the compliment

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Originally Posted by greggf

Thank you DoggieDoc...i appreciate the compliment

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I assume since those are night shots, mostly, that you used longer exposure times?





Paul

Yes, as a matter of fact!!! the horizontal Colosseum was shot about 1:30am....5 shot bracket, live view, .8, 2, 5, 13, 30 seconds respectively. After looking at the time, I am a little confused as to why they don

Those are some very nice photos and I am very jealous of the trip you got to take.


The first Colosseum photo you posted is my favorite.


Braden

Thank you Braden...A great trip, but....traveling through Italy with a 3yr old for 3 full weeks was taxing. On all of us!! We need a vacation from our vacation!!!

I can imagine. That was certainly very brave of you.


Also, did you take any precautions when it came to your photography gear and the public? Or did you travel and carry your gear as you would have in your hometown?

Brave, you say!! Many people I talked to afterward, were, like, "you did what??", but all in all, it was a good trip. The good thing, was, my dad and his girlfriend were with us, also. I think the worst was driving in the car for long stretches....one day was for about 10 hrs. We drove Florence to Cosenza(southern Italy) in 1 day. Mason, my 3 yr old, was about done after 5-6hrs.....whew!!


I actually didn

I noticed you telling that nobody seems to have noticed this thread, but I had seen it and honestly it's too much post-processingfor me personally. At least most of them. I do like the streetshot though.

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Originally Posted by greggf

the HDR's were processed with the new HDR Efex from NIK software. My opinion, it is a much better program than Photomatix...except that there are way more options for tweaking!!

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A bit off topic, but I'm interested here. What part of HDR Efex is better than Photomatix? I haven't used it, but I tried some other programs, but until now Photomatix gives me the sharpest shots. In other words, the best alligning. (Really much better than the others I've tried) As far as colors and usability concerned it's somewhat lacking, but I do most of the post-processing in other programs anyway so that's not a big deal for me.


Jan


Ps: I'm not sure if it's a resize thing or so, but your name/watermark is just getting outside the frame and it's bugging me a bit. It gives me the idea that there's more image on the left side which I cannot see.

Simply stated: Nice!

Gregg, These shots are simply stunning-----#4, the side shot of the collosium is by far my favorite---That one is a definite wall hanger or fine art piece. Tell us more about this new software you are using--HDR efx.


Thanks for sharring,


Bob

Omg wow, great job, i love the contrast in the blacks in all of them, keeping a great amout of detail in those shadows. Not a complaint, but watch the highlights, its kinda to bright, and my eye goes to that first, other than that, looks great!

sorry it

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Originally Posted by greggf

Playing around with the new HDR Efex from Nik Software(please download it and try for a free 15 day trial(I think)), has been nothing short of , well, mind blowing!! I'm not knocking Photomatix(used it for a couple of yrs), but HDR Efex has more of everything to offer, plus presets, plus more control, plus, plus , plus!! And it has their control point technology, too. There are, actually, too many ways to get to where you want to go, and it takes a lot of fooling around(read....experimenting) to get the right combination that your particular eye finds appeasing!!! But Jan, these are just my opinions....and I am by no means a professional photographer!!

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Gregg, I took your advice and downloaded the15 day trial of HDR Efx Pro---All I can say is WOW, IMHO this software is leaps and bounds better that photomatix, and I am a huge photomatix fan and owner. I used it as a plugin for Lightroom and the interface, the presets, adjustments and even the control point is extremely intuitive andeasy to use. I also like the fact you can bring up one photo and apply the presets and adjustments--You could also do this in Photomatix, but EFX pro is just so much better. Just 15 minutes with the software and I am sold. HDR Efx Pro is now on my shopping list.


Thanks for the tip,


Bob

Hi Bob....


glad you took the advice. I have to agree with you. I used Photomatix for a couple of years, on and off. Now, with HDR Efex, I really want to get more and more into HDR....although, I do have to admit...with all the sliders, and inputs, and selections, and, and, and....well unless you saved something that you really liked, you would have a hard time remembering how you did just that...know what I

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Originally Posted by greggf

well unless you saved something that you really liked, you would have a hard time remembering how you did just that...know what I'm saying??!!

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I certainly do. But....that is what make sthe presets so appealing---it provides a great starting point.


Bob

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Originally Posted by greggf

Playing around with the new HDR Efex from Nik Software(please download it and try for a free 15 day trial(I think)), has been nothing short of , well, mind blowing!! I'm not knocking Photomatix(used it for a couple of yrs), but HDR Efex has more of everything to offer, plus presets, plus more control, plus, plus , plus!!

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I quickly tried the HDR Efex pro... And yes it looks great. [Y]

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Originally Posted by greggf

There are, actually, too many ways to get to where you want to go, and it takes a lot of fooling around(read....experimenting) to get the right combination that your particular eye finds appeasing!!! But Jan, these are just my opinions....and I am by no means a professional photographer!!

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I'm no professional photographer either...I consider myself an amateur as well. The difference is purely of taste. I like photos to be somesort of natural. Even with HDR I'm aiming to get some sort of natural looking image. Perhaps a bit pushed, but not with the amount that you do.


But that's fine, we just have different tastes and opinions and I like that.


Of course it's hard to compare HDR software, but HDR Efex alligns the images just as good as Photomatix, which makes it the first program that I tried to do so. I've tried multiple programs where I figured that HDR Expose gave me the best and most natural output. Really it looked great, but the allignment was big trouble. HDR Darkroom had nothing that I really liked. Photomatix is a bit hard, but I really like it. It can give you surreal results, but it can also maintain the natural look without getting weird artifacts. With the HDR Efex I found that it's a very nice program for the creative and "more extreme" HDR users. The presets work pretty good and I guess it's a better program than Photomatix for a vast majority of persons.


However I tried to create a somewhat natural picture and I didn't like the results.I didn't like some of the detailing at all.I personally think the skies look awefull.The Photomatix image looked much cleaner. I guess I must try a new image with the "standard" settings to make a "more valid" comparison.


But for the more creative HDR'ers among us, I agree that HDR Efex looks like a very nice program.


I'll try some more when I have the time.


Jan


But then again, it's hard to compare programs without having the same settings.