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Technical Camera Images

torger

Active member
As a maker of HDR software I'd like to make the terminology a bit more exact ;-)

HDR can be split into two parts, 1) merging, ie merging bracketed shots into one single noise-free image with lots of dynamic range, and 2) tonemapping, ie compressing the dynamic range through various methods such that it fits on a screen or print.

Concerning tonemapping we have the gritty "grunge look", which is what has been closely associated to "HDR", if someone says "I don't like HDR" what they usually mean is that they don't like tonemapping with grunge look. But there's also natural tonemapping, something my software Lumariver HDR specializes at, and raw converters like Lightroom makes a pretty good job with too. Just applying a gradient or doing classical dodge-and-burn is one way of tonemapping (you can often get nice natural-looking results), but you can also employ more advanced algorithms which may be helpful in more complex scenes.

So I guess the question about the St Paul's Cathedral image would be, have you merged several images, and have you used any tonemapping techniques? It seems to me that a graduated ND filter has been used, but maybe that's all? It's certainly a very beautiful image in any case.
 

torger

Active member
Here's an image from last weekend. It's a detail from the Laitaure delta in autumn colors at the entry of Sarek national park in Sweden. It's shot from 800 meters (2600 feet) above from the peak Skierfe, an 800 meter high vertical cliff. It's only vertical on the side towards the delta though, so I did not have to climb it from there :). It was 16 km hike in flat terrain (where the tent was set), and then 9 km hike up to the summit the following day. My summit day backpack was about 17 kg (camera gear, backpack, food, clothing, security equipment), so it was quite tough, but I like that kind of challenges.

The view is extremely beautiful and among the most photographed, you can't really fail to shoot beautiful images from there, but you won't shoot unique ones either. I guess I'm one of the few that has carried a MF tech camera to the summit though. The distant viewpoint makes the landscape look abstract and painterly, so what I find most interesting to do here is to use long lenses and make well-composed crops of the scenery.

The shooting conditions weren't excellent this day, it was hazy for the season so I had to increase contrast a lot in post-processing. I'm no expert in post-processing in these conditions so there surely more that can be done, this is just a basic one. Since the angle is flatter at the upper part of the image the haze is stronger there and you also get a different tint there, so one needs to make local processing to get an even look.

This image was shot with SK72mm at f/11 on my Linhof Techno. The haze made it considerably more difficult to focus on the ground glass (and image was too low contrast to securely verify sharpness on the back), but I managed to focus all my images anyway. I made a lot of compositions from there during 2 hours and used 5 out of my 6 lenses from 35mm to 180mm, so carrying the 12kg camera gear all the way to the summit wasn't a waste :)

Had I shot again I would probably step up to f/16, the haze takes away the peak sharpness anyway, and at f/11 the many small structures make aliasing show with my 7.2um pixels (33 megapixel Aptus 75)...
 

Georg Baumann

Subscriber Member
Here's an image from last weekend. It's a detail from the Laitaure delta in autumn colors at the entry of Sarek national park in Sweden.
My giant 61 kg german shepard was named after that park, "Sarek", which of course had raised the question often whether I would be a "Trekkie", as people assumed I would have named him after Spock's father Sarek. :D
 

thrice

Active member
I pushed my poor little P45 (non-plus) to the limit with up to 20 min exposures after sunset. It held up pretty well. All shots probably f/16 ISO50 Alpa SWA and 35XL. Seems like the GetDPI uploader is resampling these and killing the sharpness so when I get around to it I'll hotlink them.
 
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