Starting out with HDR - hints & tips?

I want to try out some HDR. I have watched plenty tutorials, downloaded the trial version of Photomatix Pro and played around with sample images to find my way around and get a feel for it and I am going to purchase the full version, so that's the software side taken care of for now. I know it will take time for me to develop my own style etc so that will take its course naturally. (FWIW I do have Lightroom 4 and do not have Photoshop or any other editing software).

I am going away in a few weeks for 3 days with my camera and hoping to get some nice photos of a railway museum and thought it would be great to take plenty of bracketed shots for any that I think would/could work nicely in HDR. So here come the questions:

I will have a tripod and will have plenty memory cards so that's all checked off the list

Do you always shoot in aperture priority mode? (I get the depth of field issue here but wondered if there was anything else I need to know)

Are 3 bracketed shots enough or does anyone go with 5, and if so, what are the benefits/drawbacks, if any

Do you shoot in raw + jpg or does anyone just shoot in raw? I ask this because I have not been saving jpgs lately and wonder if I need to remember to change that while I am out and about.

​Any other do's and don'ts that I may have missed would be appreciated

Here's a tip. Setup your tripod and camera in your own livingroom and develop the answers to your questions by testing the various issues... And see what transpires so when you go away in few weeks, you have a plan and are comfortable in what settings to use. Don't wait until the trip to start exploring.

I normally shoot aperture priority when trying to capture images for HDR. However, depending on movement in the image (e.g. people, windy day, etc.), I will use shutter priority to try to minimize ghosting. I only shoot RAW.

I always take preliminary shots to ensure I'm starting with a solid "base". This will wind up being your "middle" image. If I need to dial-in exposure compensation, I can determine that here. The histogram is your friend.

Most of my HDR images are shot handheld. I utilize the breathing and bracing techniques learned long ago during weapons training in the military. Google it, you'll be surprised at how useful breath control to minimize movement - even with VR - can be to photography. As far as bracing, if possible I find something to lean against or sit on and tuck elbows in tight to torso. If that isn't sufficient, I will support my camera out of my hand and use a remote release.

My normal bracket size for HDR is 5 frames. This allows me to discard two if needed. (One technique that I've seen often used by others is to discard the two middle images of a 5 frame bracket.) If the image demands the maximum amount of range, I will use 7 or 9 brackets, but 5 seems to be the sweet spot IMHO.

For example, I captured an amazing amount of color out of a handheld 5 image bracket recently in a church in Spain. The reason I referred to this image is because Photomatix couldn't process it correctly. I wound up using HDR Efex. My advice is to not get too caught up in the software but first focus on capture technique.

Lee said:

I am going away in a few weeks for 3 days with my camera and hoping to get some nice photos of a railway museum

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Funny, so am I. By chance are you going to Union, IL?

ED I have a question for you. When doing a 5 shot bracket what is your step value? When I was using the D90 all I could do is a three shot bracket shot and set it to 1.0. Now that I have the D7100 I can shot five but I think stepping at 1.0 for five shots would be too much can you recommend a step value for five shots?

Shoot Aperture Priority only - Shutter Priority bracketing will mess with your depth of field and could produce other types of ghosting (I understand the windy day thing - use a program that does a better job on ghost reduction, like HDR Efex Pro 2). Tripods are almost a must, particularly if you're indoors in lower light. Also, try to shoot in native ISO if you can (100 on the D7000, 200 on the D90) to keep noise as low as possible.

Rick I always use a full stop as my bracket.

Wow! You all have such different and such helpful advice! One of the big benefits of a good forum!

FredKingston, thank you for that. I had a "D'oh!" moment when I read your post, but it's so true. You're right - I do not want to be trying to figure it all out when I'm there

Eduard, I also wondered about the five frame EV range. Using 1EV stops at -2 -1 0 +1 +2 gives almost the same range as doing three frames at -2 0 +2 (?) so I didn't think that was too much but that's a pure shot in the dark and I'm curious now.

2EV stops seems to be the 'standard' for 3 frame HDR it seems. I am sure some have their own preferences but it does seem to be the general preferred setting.

What about manually bracketing for more frames? Is that an option, provided you have a good stable tripod?

AxeMan, I'm not going to the Illinois museum but I just googled it and think I might need to factor in another photo trip!! I love trains!

BackDoorHippie, yes, I will definitely be taking a tripod as I want to do some night shots too. I have no problem lugging all my gear with me when I'm out for photos. It always turns out that the one thing you didn't think you needed is the thing you don't have when you do

Also, I will be shooting with a D7000

Lee said:

Eduard, I also wondered about the five frame EV range. Using 1EV stops at -2 -1 0 +1 +2 gives almost the same range as doing three frames at -2 0 +2 (?) so I didn't think that was too much but that's a pure shot in the dark and I'm curious now.

2EV stops seems to be the 'standard' for 3 frame HDR it seems. I am sure some have their own preferences but it does seem to be the general preferred setting.

What about manually bracketing for more frames? Is that an option, provided you have a good stable tripod?

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Agree with the two stops but since the largest EV range that my D300 can do is one. . . I default to 5 frames and can toss -1 and +1.

When the stars align and you can get a 9 bracket image, the colors just pop! One of my all time personal favorites was created from a 9 bracket set. Surprisingly, it too was shot handheld.

Eduard said:

Agree with the two stops but since the largest EV range that my D300 can do is one. . . I default to 5 frames and can toss -1 and +1.

When the stars align and you can get a 9 bracket image, the colors just pop! One of my all time personal favorites was created from a 9 bracket set. Surprisingly, it too was shot handheld.

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Breathing or no breathing, I am not sure I would manage 9 frames hand held! Are you absolutely SURE you have a pulse? So the various cameras have their own respective limitations on how many frames you can get into a bracketed range; does that mean manually bracketing (not sure if there is such a term) to dial in the settings to create the wider range over more frames is an option if the situation potentially calls for it?

Different cameras do have different bracketing capabilities. One of my buddies is a Canon 60d shooter and always complains when we're out that his body only supports a 3 image bracket set. He has to manually adjust exposure comp to take an additional set if he wants 5. Some of the entry level Nikons (e.g. D3000) do not have any bracketing capabilities. Creating brackets for HDR in that situation is totally manual.

Does the D3000 have no bracketing capabilities? I didn't know that! I had an old D40 as my first DSLR and discovered bracketing the hard way .... it was set to bracketing 3 exposures when I got the camera. I had never heard of this feature and it took me about 2 weeks to figure out why I had to take every shot 3 times and delete two

Some of my thoughts:

-Always use a tripod if possible
-Always Aperture priority
-Wind and cloud movement is huge, leaves are almost always moving, even without detectable wind.
-Pay attention to your over exposure shot, the camera is not displaying how slow the shutter may be.
-If it's windy, clouds moving fast or highlights on water I shoot the EV tighter (+-1) and crank up the shutter speed using higher ISO.
-Most of my shots are +-2, unless the above conditions
-I prefer 3 exposures for file size and speed. I like to get my group of shots off fast.

The pro version of Photomatix really doesn't do much more than the cheap version. It mostly has more presets I'll never use.

Rick M said:

Some of my thoughts:

-Wind and cloud movement is huge, leaves are almost always moving, even without detectable wind.
-Pay attention to your over exposure shot, the camera is not displaying how slow the shutter may be.
-If it's windy, clouds moving fast or highlights on water I shoot the EV tighter (+-1) and crank up the shutter speed using higher ISO.
-Most of my shots are +-2, unless the above conditions
-I prefer 3 exposures for file size and speed. I like to get my group of shots off fast.

Click to expand...

Thanks for that. I didn't think about the movement of clouds and leaves and the like with a slower shutter speed.

Rick M said:

The pro version of Photomatix really doesn't do much more than the cheap version. It mostly has more presets I'll never use.

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Aside from the presets there were some other features offered by the Pro version and it has the lightroom plugin (I don't think the Essentials version has that, but can't remember). Do you not think it's worth the extra 60 bucks for the little extras? More food for thought for me. I was just going to go with the full version .....

I guess if you want the plugin, get the pro. I played around with the pro version after having the "light" one, it just didn't do much for me.

I had to pop back onto this thread to thank you all for your great advice. I did get the full version of Photomatix (yesterday ) after I got back from my train museum visit. I won some and lost some, as with everything, but it was such a wonderful experience and I learned a LOT. I took my tripod which I used as much as I could and just did my best for handheld where it was not practical or possible. I also had some challenges with using aperture priority a few times because it wasn't giving me a 'correct' exposure so where I had the tripod I went manual and just adjusted the shutter speed and left the aperture alone. I haven't had a chance to go through all my 1000 shots But of course, since I had new software to try out, I couldn't leave them alone completely last night so I thought I would share a few of my HDR attempts with you all

http://flickr.com/gp/2tiggies/N52h42/

And some non-train photos

http://www.flickr.com/photos/2tiggies/sets/72157633609798789/