If you are new to the whole HDR concept I suggest you first read my posts titled HDR Introduction and Pseudo HDR
Anyone who heard about Photomatix, knows that it creates HDR images. But in addition to a usual HDRs combined from several exposures, you can also create a nice pseudo HDR images – in short an “HDR looking” image made from a single RAW file.
In order to do that you open just that one RAW file in Photomatix, and it “understands” that you want to create a pseudo... more
My personal study of light continues and this is the third post, which I am writing after another several hours of playing with light. My first post on this is “Patterns and Light Study” and second is “Light Study (I) Working with flashes”.
This time I was inspired by some abstract photographs I saw on the net, and wanted to try and do something abstract (or almost abstract ) myself. For this shoot I used Canon 100mm F2.8 Macro lens, and two flashes with gels on them. The... more
Finally two additional flash units that I ordered on e-bay arrived and I could experiment with more than a single light source. Now I have one Canon flash (430 EX, bought second hand) and two Yongnuo flashes. Yongnuo (full name is Shenzhen Yong Nuo) is a Chinese company, which makes photographic equipment. They sell many products, which can be cheap replacements for the branded expensive Canon or Nikon stuff. For example these two new Yongnuo flash units cost me less than one Canon 430EX second hand!... more
Recently I have seen many HDR images that were too exaggerated, making them completely unrealistic and in some cases even unpleasant to watch. Programs such as Photomatix make it very easy to create HDR images but they are also tend to lead people to create very exaggerated HDR images, maybe because it is very easy to accomplish in these programs.
I have nothing against using HDR techniques in creating artistic imagery, but I would like to remind you that the original intention of the HDR was just... more
In one of my recent articles I wrote about HDR photography (you can read it here). So I learned about HDR, and I played with it, and everything seemed pretty clear to me. Of course there are endless variations that can be done with HDR, and only your creativity is the limit, but during my explorations I kept stumbling into these strange words: “Pseudo HDR”. Most of the photos I saw under this title looked pretty much as ordinary photos, but some of them looked like real HDR, and if I... more
When I just started getting interested in photography I discovered many interesting sites and forums on the web. And from time to time I saw this mysterious abbreviation HDR, and very unusual photos under it. And for some time I couldn’t figure out what it is that people do with their photographs that make them “HDR”.
So finally I decided to research this issue and found out what it is, and many different techniques to achieve an HDR image. It has been quite some time now that I have been playing... more
