Real Estate Photography 5D mkIII

[@!ex]

@!ex those pics are AMAZING! Well done!

Cheers!

Much appreciated.  Just having this creative outlet/hobby has made my life so much richer (as I'm sure it does for all of us shutter bugs).  Nice break from the day job.

[revup67]

revup manages to get some pretty decent results out of photomatix

..thanks for the plug Wicki  

Indeed all of the presets stink in Photomatix 4.2, yes all of them.  I've spent a bit of time adjust the sliders to get better results.  One thing I notice it almost always blows out the highlights.  So I created a few presets of my own that work sometimes on some pics but then again I have to adjust those as they may be too flat.  I have found taking 3 HDR's or more with P 4.2 is a waste.  I get better results with a single RAW then choose file|open and process only the single image.  This also saves on camera actuations.  Wicki's got some great points.  He's taught me a few good tricks also.. (10Q Wicki).  I don't particularly care for the 5D in camera HDR or DPP HDR as when it aligns photos it tends to crop off far too much vs. processing a single RAW which crops off nothing.  Why spend good money on a FF and nice UWA only to lose part of the shot?

I'm attaching a few of the presets I created in Photomatix..you may or may not like them so use at your own risk and rename to anything you like.  When you open Photomatix 4.2 there's a second vertical column adjacent to Process.  At the top of that outer most column click All / Import (see attached for image location screen capture and my presets in a zip)

PS I mostly use the attached presets as a starting point especially when P 4.2 overexposes.  From
there I tweak each image further until desired results are reached then saved as a TIFF and then open in ACDSee 5 and use lighting equalizers in there or in Lightroom 4.1.  I've only had these software apps about a month or so so still exploiting each of them. 

[@!ex]

revup manages to get some pretty decent results out of photomatix

..thanks for the plug Wicki  

Indeed all of the presets stink in Photomatix 4.2, yes all of them.  I've spent a bit of time adjust the sliders to get better results.  One thing I notice it almost always blows out the highlights.  So I created a few presets of my own that work sometimes on some pics but then again I have to adjust those as they may be too flat.  I have found taking 3 HDR's or more with P 4.2 is a waste.  I get better results with a single RAW then choose file|open and process only the single image.  This also saves on camera actuations.  Wicki's got some great points.  He's taught me a few good tricks also.. (10Q Wicki).  I don't particularly care for the 5D in camera HDR or DPP HDR as when it aligns photos it tends to crop off far too much vs. processing a single RAW which crops off nothing.  Why spend good money on a FF and nice UWA only to lose part of the shot?

I'm attaching a few of the presets I created in Photomatix..you may or may not like them so use at your own risk and rename to anything you like.  When you open Photomatix 4.2 there's a second vertical column adjacent to Process.  At the top of that outer most column click All / Import (see attached for image location screen capture and my presets in a zip)

PS I mostly use the attached presets as a starting point especially when P 4.2 overexposes.  From
there I tweak each image further until desired results are reached then saved as a TIFF and then open in ACDSee 5 and use lighting equalizers in there or in Lightroom 4.1.  I've only had these software apps about a month or so so still exploiting each of them.

I'm not sure where to start with this one.  I would have to respectfully disagree with you on most of these points.  First though I will agree with you about the presets in photomatix, they are indeed garbage.  I always save my settings at the end of every photomatix session that way I have a couple hundred presets to brows as I start tone mapping a new image and it often give me a good starting place, but I find that each image needs its own unique settings to get it right.

Taking 3 or more bracketed photo's is a waste?  This might be the single biggest miscalculation in the history of HDR photography (sorry for the hyperbole).  I think what is happening for you that is causing you to feel this way is that you are not utilizing HDR in the way it excels most.  I have seen some of your HDR images in this thread and the reason you can get away with a single expose is that often the dynamic range in the shots you are processing is captured by a single exposure.  The true utility of HDR is to capture dynamic range that is far beyond what a single expose can capture such as the 14-18ev difference between a dark room and the bright sunlight outside, or the dim foreground against the bright background of the setting sun.  In these cases a single shot could and will never suffice.  In fact a 3 shot bracket would not even be nearly enough and I often use 7 shots at 2-3 ev spacing to capture the full range of light.  One of the biggest reasons so many people are so anti-HDR is because it is so often used in situations that do not warrant it as a sort of pony trick to add some impact to pictures, and it often has the opposite effect. 

Here are a couple HDR pictures I shot where multiple exposures are absolutely necessary and where HDR is the only way such images could be captured (except the very few in here with flat featureless horizons in which a grad ND filter could partially do the job).  As for advice I would say never worry about camera actuations just shoot away and if you are going to bracket then you might as well bracket large (auto align never crops that much unless you are waay off from shot to shot).  There is no substitute for understanding all the settings, what they do, how they effect each other and what final type of image you want in you tone mapping software of choice.  No substitute for experience. 


Fire Watch by @!ex, on Flickr


Waiting for Tomorrow by @!ex, on Flickr


Sunset and County by @!ex, on Flickr


Electric Sunset at City Park by @!ex, on Flickr


Sunset Blvd by @!ex, on Flickr


Selective Focus by @!ex, on Flickr


Home on the range... by @!ex, on Flickr


Shadow of Hope II by @!ex, on Flickr


Broken Future by @!ex, on Flickr


Sunny Solitude by @!ex, on Flickr


Math Machine by @!ex, on Flickr


Sleeps Alone by @!ex, on Flickr


Stairs Stares by @!ex, on Flickr


Loco, Loco... by @!ex, on Flickr


Last Light: Chi-Town on the Rocks by @!ex, on Flickr

[revup67]

but I find that each image needs its own unique settings to get it right.

@lex..no worries it is OK to disagree that is one aspect of this forum.  I can see you are proud of your work and admittedly the processing you choose is quite nice.  if you can't tell, I'm not 100% sold on HDR and certainly don't use it for everything and only when appropriate.  There's much abuse by far too many people in using HDR.  On the contrary, there's a lot of purists in this group that also prefer other methods and wouldn't dare touch HDR.  Of course I understand the mechanics behind HDR with respect to DNR but if you have not experimented with the lighting equalizers within Lightroom or ACDSee Pro 5 as well as masking and other tuning techniques you may be missing on the ability to exploit the DNR in that form as well and/or both. 

I sometimes use the same template (preset) especially if shots are taken in the same scene where the lighting is the same.  No need to create multiple templates in that scenario and as mentioned, the presets within P 4.2 are pointless.  The ones of created are starting points, then I tweak from there.

[RLPhoto]

I dont care for HDR, but thats just me. Just too much grey tones for my tastes.

The composition on these is very solid though. Good Work Alex.

[wickidwombat]

Oh I meant to mention previously a great utility to speed up masking especially for fixing sky halos is to use topaz remask
http://www.topazlabs.com/remask/

its worth trying out the free trial and if you buy it I think trey ratcliff still has his 20% discount code "STUCKINCUSTOMS"

also I am still not a fan of the excessive photomatixing those wild colourshifts! and the photomatix fuzzies
there are other ways to do it that look cleaner however none are as fast as cookie cutter HDR

[@!ex]

Oh I meant to mention previously a great utility to speed up masking especially for fixing sky halos is to use topaz remask
http://www.topazlabs.com/remask/

its worth trying out the free trial and if you buy it I think trey ratcliff still has his 20% discount code "STUCKINCUSTOMS"

also I am still not a fan of the excessive photomatixing those wild colourshifts! and the photomatix fuzzies
there are other ways to do it that look cleaner however none are as fast as cookie cutter HDR

Something no one has mentioned but a technique I often use in conjunction with traditional tonemapping is exposure fusion.  If you are really so averse to color shifts and "fuzzies" (both of which can easily be controlled with good tone mapping) you should really check exposure fusion out.  I often do a tone mapped version and a fusion then mask together my favorite parts of each, but you could opt for just the fusion.  Fusions actually decrease noise where tonemaps often increase it. There are dedicated fusion programs such as enfuse, but photomatix has one of the best fusion algorithms builds in....

[wickidwombat]

Oh I meant to mention previously a great utility to speed up masking especially for fixing sky halos is to use topaz remask
http://www.topazlabs.com/remask/

its worth trying out the free trial and if you buy it I think trey ratcliff still has his 20% discount code "STUCKINCUSTOMS"

also I am still not a fan of the excessive photomatixing those wild colourshifts! and the photomatix fuzzies
there are other ways to do it that look cleaner however none are as fast as cookie cutter HDR

Something no one has mentioned but a technique I often use in conjunction with traditional tonemapping is exposure fusion.  If you are really so averse to color shifts and "fuzzies" (both of which can easily be controlled with good tone mapping) you should really check exposure fusion out.  I often do a tone mapped version and a fusion then mask together my favorite parts of each, but you could opt for just the fusion.  Fusions actually decrease noise where tonemaps often increase it. There are dedicated fusion programs such as enfuse, but photomatix has one of the best fusion algorithms builds in....

i'd have to agree that fusion is ok for certain things
unfortunately i think many of the images you posted still suffer the "fuzzies" and colour shifts
that give off that tell tale photomatix look.
still good shots, I think less processing might benefit them but thats a personal taste thing again.

there seems to be a good HDR fan base on this site and I think sharing techniques and being open to each others suggestions will help develop each others techniques. One thing that shits me to death with the "HDR pros" is they dont fully explain their techniques even when you pay for their information so its largely a waste and "the look" they have is tired and over processed

I've been having some good chats with revup and sharing ideas, I've got the latest tony kuyper photoshop panel which i have to admit i need to sit down and try out. Unfortunately it's impossible to get HDR to appeal to everyones taste, some like the surreal look alot others dont its very subjective.

I still shoot bracketed sets alot evn though i may just end up processing a single exposure from the set
I havent done much HDr lately as I think i have HDR fatigue and got tired of the surreal dreamy look everything gets. I need to sit down and have a look at revups presets and see how they go too.

there is great potential if we all share ideas and stuff here to develop a really solid HDR technique, thing with this site is you will get some solid critique where as places like flickr are just full of people that will goo and gah over stuff which give skewed perspectives.

There are many great photographers on this site much much better than I

I'm still searching for the HDR holy grail

[revup67]

Wicki..well said and eloquently delivered.

I've still got the HDR bug to an an extent but no matter how much I de-saturate, de-luminate, de-tonate, de-whatever..someone out there in CR world will critique the uploads and find an alternate way they believe the photo would benefit.  I look at this as not necessarily debatable criticism but perhaps another method to seek out that I've not explored thus providing more options and expanding my horizons.

And finally, here's my HDR slogan:
"Too much HDR reminds me of a woman with excessive make-up and her skirts up too high.  Thus, the photo has been whored and now considered trash".

Guaranteed someone will reply.."so what's wrong with that"?   

[dilbert]

Have you done no post-production correction except for HDR?

I hope you didn't charge for these because I definitely wouldn't have paid for them.

Get yourself a 17mm TS-E lens if you're going to do more of this type of work.

[AmbientLight]

Isn't that a bit negative, after we had such nice and constructive posts from both @lex, wickidwombat and revup? I am not exactly a HDR enthusiast or something, but some of @lex's shots can really only be done using HDR and yes, they look well composed and well executed in post-processing. Thanks @lex!

[revup67]

AmbientLight +1..thanks for the kind words.

@lex..spent more time with P 4.2.1 and found the Exposure Fusion a bit more of what I was seeking.  Thought again the presets were limiting as expected.  Strangely, I opened (ready..) the User Manual.PDF  Who would ever think to do that?  Not any of us Pro's. 

I must confess, the creators of Photomatix do claim you get MDR (medium dynamic range with 3-5 exposures) but true HDR with 5-7 or more.  So pardon my statement about bracketed photos being a waste as compared to multi exposures...again, just personal preference and dig working with single RAW's being a bit of a purist coming from the film days (yeah I am freakin old).  There some other cool features for effects in P 4.2.1 ..one called "Unwrap Mirror ball"..have you seen that one?  A bit of a novelty but it offers an extra wide landscape effect with some stretching.  P 4.2.1 also claims to "reduce noise first before HDR processing"..I was unaware of that but usually have that option "On" before HDR'ing.  There's also 3 different RGB modes sRGB, Adobe and Pro Photo RGB.  Was also toying with the deghosting feature and the lasso tool.  A good thread here.

[dilbert]

Isn't that a bit negative, after we had such nice and constructive posts from both @lex, wickidwombat and revup? I am not exactly a HDR enthusiast or something, but some of @lex's shots can really only be done using HDR and yes, they look well composed and well executed in post-processing. Thanks @lex!

Hey, I added some constructive advice: get a 17mm TS-E.

HDR won't fix the flaws that arise from not using that len.

[danski0224]

Electric Sunset at City Park by @!ex, on Flickr

I like this one. Very nice.

[danski0224]

Hey, I added some constructive advice: get a 17mm TS-E.

Care to share some images?