Since the "Post your best HDR photo" thread seems to have gone all over the map, I thought I'd spawn a new thread for some discussion and comparison. In the previous thread, there's been discussion and debate about how many shots are needed and what step is best. I in no way profess to know the answers or pointers, but have some relevant shots for us to pore over.


This weekend I shot a bicycling event. Yesterday I found myself at a low water crossing (that's Texan for a bridge that's expected to be underwater and unusable with any amount of excess flow in the creek/stream/river that it's crossing) with some great scenic vistas. Tripod, 1D Mark III, 16-35/2.8II, cable release. Not a great tripod, but it looks like it did well enough. Shooting a RAW plus a small JPEG each time, bracketing set for 7 shots in each example, shooting the normal exposure first, then the most underexposed to the most overexposed (i.e. 0, -3, -2, -1, +1, +2, +3). For each of three compositions, I did a bracket at 1EV steps and then a bracket at 2EV steps. From that, I assembled an HDR from the 7@1EV, an HDR from the 7@2EV, and then an HDR from 9@EV (using the original 7 plus the -4 and +4 out of the second set).


Please go here to view all of the examples and pixel-peep to your heart's content: http://photos.templin.org/gallery/hdr101 - in each folder you'll find the various images to compare. If you click on each image to bring up a screen-size image, you can then click on the screen-size image for a full-res image.


Samples:


Base exposure (pulled from the in-camera small JPEG...didn't want to complicate things with any other CR2->JPEG utility). f/11, ISO 100, 1/125th, auto white balance (I was lazy given the nature of the event), shot as aperture priority.





HDR 7@1EV:








HDR 7@2EV:








HDR 9@1EV: