I spent the first weekend of May down at the Indianapolis Speedway shooting hot air balloons. Before the Speedway was a racetrack, there was a balloon race in 1909. To celebrate the centennial, they had several balloon events over the weekend. Friday night was a balloon glow where they keep the balloons on the ground and light them up, creating some very cool colors. The same thing for Saturday night. Sunday morning there was a balloon race that took off from the track.
I played around with HDR some more and had what I think was some success with it. While also proving my self wrong, or at the very least short sighted.
Balloons wait to launch at the start of the balloon race Sunday.Image copyright Erik Markov 2009
I had 500 image files by the time I got done from all the balloon events of the weekend. That's from shooting with the D700, D70 and my Canon G2 p&s. It was a variety of 3, 5 and 7 series exposures. All told if I made HDR images from all the series, I might end up with 50 HDR images. And of that it's hard to say how many might actually work in reality.
Part of shooting HDR I'm finding very quickly is scouting out your location and shooting conditions. The range of light values, what the weather is like, amount of motion in your subject. The above image was shot with the D70 handheld, 3 exposures 1 stop apart. The balloon on the back right you can see where the software had some difficulty lining things up. Not sure if that's because it was handheld, movement from the balloon or the fact it wasn't the balloon I was focused on and thus the depth of field may have played a part.
I don't think it's enough to drastically affect the image tho. The image is probably entering the surreal area, but I like it. There was room in Photomatix to take it even further, but I felt this was about right. Part of what affects whether an image comes across as surreal or not is what the subject is. I might be wrong about this, but balloons being the subject helps I think because it is kind of a whimsical type of event anyway.
Friday night's balloon glow, shot with the Canon G2. Image copyright Erik Markov 2009
The above image is entirely surreal, no doubt about it. The desaturation is a result of what I did in Photomatix. The heavy cloud cover also gives it a bit of an ominous feeling. That was shot with the G2 which only allows me a series of 3 exposures. The normally saturated image I didn't like as much, that's why I tried going to the extreme. Granted there are a couple easy ways around the bracket limit, but I wasn't too concerned about what images I would get from that camera, I was more just playing around.
Friday night's balloon glow, shot with the Nikon D700.
Friday night's balloon glow, shot with the Nikon D700.Image copyright Erik Markov 2009
This image, shot with the D700, was a series of 7. This is a mixture of the realistic with the surreal. One exposure of this image probably wouldn't yield both a good exposure of the balloons, the pagoda and the sky, but I don't think it looks too unreal. The grass, yes. I used Photomatix to add some contrast and texture to the grass, I could have backed off some more to make it look more natural, but I kinda liked it this way. Someone else might think it's too gritty.
The pagoda at the Speedway Friday night, shot with the D700.Image copyright Erik Markov 2009
The images of the pagoda are a perfect example of the possibilities with HDR. To expose for that photo typically, there are going to have to be compromises. Expose for the lights along the sides, allowing the sign on the front and the sidewalk to go dark? Expose for the sign to be able to see the historical photo, and completely blow out the same lights causing some massive flare? There really isn't a good option for one exposure.
Image copyright Erik Markov 2009
Image copyright Erik Markov 2009
Image copyright Erik Markov 2009The sprint cars are something I played around with during an assignment to shoot the season opening of the Kokomo Speedway. I'm not a huge fan of going out there, find it kinda boring really. It's muddy, it's boring watching cars just going around and around.... and around the track. That's why there are so many types of racing, to each his own. After shooting the stuff for the assignment the next day, I played around for a little while with the HDR. Kept my mind occupied for a little bit.
Now, you're not supposed to be able to shoot moving images and make them HDR. Most of the time, the image layers aren't going to line up properly. That made it a challenge just for the heck of it to see if I could do it. There is a little bleed thru on some parts of the image from one layer onto another, but I was really surprised how well it did turn out. Most of the bleed thru is stuff that could be fixed in Photoshop. Certainly not something you would do for an image that was going to run in the paper and represent what an event looked like. It strays into an ethical gray area. But just to play with, it's a lot of fun.
For moving images there is another option for HDR, which is to shoot RAW. Once in the computer you create your 3 or 5 or 7 exposures, then make the image in Photomatix. This could also be used if you just don't feel like shooting the bracketed exposures. For those that shoot RAW all the time and then convert to JPG, they can choose to do an HDR image anytime they like without having to plan ahead of time. I've tried playing with this some and haven't had much success. I've just found the bracketed exposures to be easier for the time being.
HDR.... is it just for fun, or is it a legitimate tool to add to a photographer's bag of tricks? I don't have the answer to that. I do know that right now it has me thinking about creating images in a different way. I've got a list of places that I want to visit again to shoot in HDR. I think that's the frustrating thing about HDR (in a good way) and photography in general. Just when you think you've shot an image that is as good as it gets, along comes a technique or a piece of equipment that gives you a new idea of how to shoot that image. Oh, well.
