VI sunset in HDR
Experimenting with making HDR images of sunsets - so that the area around the sun is not overexposed but without losing detail and colors in dark areas. Unfortu...
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Experimenting with making HDR images of sunsets - so that the area around the sun is not overexposed but without losing detail and colors in dark areas. Unfortunately there was wind so you can spot some artifacts of deghosting
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Dec, 2014Views
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People's Choice in Is it HDR? Submit subtly processed HDR photos Photo Challenge
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Behind The Lens
Location
I took this photo on St. Thomas, US Virgin Islands during my vacation there. It's a wonderful spot in the Caribbean that presents plentiful beautiful sights to take photos of.Time
Evening, as it is a sunset shot :)Lighting
The light is all natural.Equipment
My usual Pentax K-x with 18-55mm kit lens, which works great for landscapes. I didn't need a tripod as the bracketed exposures were pretty short (even the +3 was only 1/400th of a second long).Inspiration
It's a beautiful sunset in the Caribbean - what more reason does one need? The sun was low in the sky, filling the air with golden light and leaving a shiny trail on the water. I knew that a single exposure would only let me capture a portion of the scene due to the vast difference in brightness - especially if I want to include the sun itself in the frame. And so I took a bracketed shot to process into an HDR image later.Editing
Yes - merging the exposures into an HDR image using Photomatix software. It took a while of playing with settings to get the result I wanted - have the benefits of HDR such as detail and color in both under- and over-exposed areas while minimizing the common artifacts of such processing. The goal was to make it realistic and close to what my eyes saw when I took the photo. One tricky part was removing ghosts - the branches in foreground moved in the wind between exposures, but after highlighting the problem areas the software took care of it.In my camera bag
Pentax K-x with a few lenses - kit 18-55, telephoto, macro, and a recently added tilt-shift that I haven't properly experimented with as of yet. On occasions where it is too inconvenient or difficult to carry something the size of DSLR, I take a Sony RX-100.Feedback
Be in the right place in the right time - catch a sunset over water in the right weather. Bracket exposures - I did +3/0/-3, for such high-contrast scene use whatever the maximum range your camera allows. Then play around with processing software - don't settle for presets. With luck and a bit of work, you'll have it!
