My first HDR

[blzrd]

Here in Utah, there are lots of fires. All the smoke is doing some pretty amazing things with colors and light. I decided to do a panaramic of the lanscape. There is so much smoke that you can't even see the mountains that are always prominant on a normal day on the horizon. Tell me what you guys think. This is my first panaramic and my first HDR. two birds with one stone.

PS please view the enlarged version before giving your critique so you can appreciate the minute details.





If anyone on a broadband connection wants the full file, it can be found here via rapidshare.com.

http://rapidshare.com/files/42415299/finished.jpg.html

[clockdoc]

I am glad to see someone trying a panoramic . How many images did you stitch together and what software did you use? As for the HDR technique, had you not mentioned HDR in the title I don't think the thought would have crossed my mind. While it has a distinct colorization about it, it doesn't remind me of the few HDR galleries I have recently viewed. I like the perspective lead in but tracks need a train coming down them to keep one's eye in the fram. This is a nice scene. I look forward to seeing more of your panoramas and HDR efforts.

[blzrd]

The problem with HDR is I don't have the right program to make the super saturated photos that people normally use. I was trying stuff with CS2, but I couldn't get near the color balance I was looking for. I then tryed the trial CS3 and it wasn't any better. I finally found a program called FDR tools which can be found HERE. It has a free version that works just fine for my purposes. The program that people normally use is called Photomatix and costs $99. It can be found HERE. Photomatix is alot better at bringing out saturation in colors.

As far as what I used to make it.... I took 15 exposures from 6 different angles all at different ev stops. I was only able to stich together 4 angles because of how wide my lens was. I first chose 5 or 6 exposures from each angle and made 16 bit tiff files with FDR tools. I then use CS3 to stitch them together because it is more intuitive. I wish CS3 was cheaper so I can use it for longer.....

[uvsub]

Love the colours in the sky; skewed tracks in foreground are to be expected in panos but they are still somewhat disturbing somehow...like the shot overall though.

[clockdoc]

Thanks for posting the details of your shot. Give Autostitch a try. It is a free program and can be downloaded at www.autostitch.net. One of the tricks with shooting panoramic shots is that you ideally should rotating the camera around the "nodal point" of the lens. The easiest way to interpret this is the middle of the lens barrel unless some has a better method. The software is also very forgiving even if you hand-hold the shots and get a little off that nodal point mark. You need to overlap each scene by about 25-30 percent. You did a nice stitching job with CS3. Give Autostich a try and see how it compares.

[Murtasma]

Looks good I like it. I think the image could use a little more contrast in it however. It must have taken forever to do a hdr panaroma image processing wise. How did you create the HDR file in photoshop? There are several ways to do it.

[blzrd]

So I have some exiting news. I found out how to take out the watermark that photomatix puts on the picture when you use the free version of the photoshop plugin. I get my 16 bit tiff image, I run photomatix filter on a duplicated layer. I then duplicate the background again (I now have 3 layers) and I change the canvas size. I make it ancor to the top and I make the height grow about 60%. I fill the extra space with grey. Then I run the filter again on the background copy with the same settings. Then you can just mask out the watermarks from the top layer. It can do some wierd color differences, so you might have to play around with the levels for each watermark position on the second filtered layer. Here is what I got. See if you can find where the watermarks used to be.

PS This is in no way am excellent composition, I just went out in my front yard and did this because the clouds were doing some cool lighting.

Edit: Fyi, This photo is composed of 3 Raw files. Respectively at -2.00, 0.00 and +2.00 exposures at 18 mm.

[blzrd]

I think I am going to retry doing the panaramic with photomatix tomorrow to see if I can get it to look any better using my new technique. stay tuned