I'm addicted to HDR - Help!

[potterm]

Yes the symptoms are clear - leaving the camera on auto-bracketting all the time. Always taking a tripod. A hard disk full of at least five exposures of everything, and in RAW! What can I do to break this addiction? The latest four symptoms are shown below. All suggestions for how I can get back to "real" photography gratefully received....

Thanks for looking.
Martin.

P.S. the other day I thought I'd cracked it - just leave the tripod at home - but then I discovered the "handheld HDR" technique so all hope is truly lost...

Shalford Chapel:


A fence made from railway sleepers:


Scotney Castle #1:


Scotney Castle #2:

[sheltiesmama]

OMG! Now I really want to go there. So pretty.

[Chewys Dad]

Beautiful HDR Creations! I absolutely Love the 2nd one. The others are very well done as also.
Was it storming or is the Darkness of the sky a result of the HDR application?
Thanks for sharing these
Michael

[FoG]

Nice HDR seems a good addiction I go to HDR anonymous weekly now we are given cameras set to suto as punishment !

Love the fist and second ones really nicely done keep up the HDR's I need the occasional fix

[potterm]

Originally Posted by sheltiesmama

OMG! Now I really want to go there. So pretty.

Thanks - Scotney Castle is well worth a visit if you're ever in the UK / Kent in Spring or Summer.

Originally Posted by Chewys Dad

Beautiful HDR Creations! I absolutely Love the 2nd one. The others are very well done as also.
Was it storming or is the Darkness of the sky a result of the HDR application?
Thanks for sharing these
Michael

Thanks Chewys - I did darken/add contrast to the one of the Chapel in Photoshop to add mood to it, but not for the others. It wasn't stormy in any of the photo's, and you are right that this is a side effect of the HDR processing (which annoys me if I'm honest). I like to get good texture into the buildings by upping the strength of the HDR algorithm, but this invariably creates dark clouds. Haven't figured out how to avoid that so far...

Originally Posted by FoG

Nice HDR seems a good addiction I go to HDR anonymous weekly now we are given cameras set to suto as punishment !

Love the fist and second ones really nicely done keep up the HDR's I need the occasional fix

Ha ha - thanks FoG - never realised there was a self help group. I'll have to look it up!

All the best.

[manwez]

Well while you try to stop your addiction, I'm going to try to figure out how to do it! Those pics are awesome! Clearly I still have a TON to learn about photography

[Barbara554]

looks like your HDR symptoms are serious I have been wanting to try this myself, any advice?

[potterm]

Originally Posted by manwez

Well while you try to stop your addiction, I'm going to try to figure out how to do it! Those pics are awesome! Clearly I still have a TON to learn about photography

Thanks manwez. There's loads of info on the web about HDR - just google it. I started using some open source software called Qtpfsgui (don't ask me what it stands for). I then moved up to payware using Photomatix, which is excellent and very easy to use. To be honest it's not at all difficult - the clever stuff is all built into the HDR software you use (you can also apply HDR by using layering and masks in (e.g) photoshop, but it's alot of work (although if done well gives superiour results).

Originally Posted by Barbara554

looks like your HDR symptoms are serious I have been wanting to try this myself, any advice?

Hi Barbara - as I said above you're probably better off Googling for HDR - there are lots of tutorials on the web. You can actually download Photomatrix as a trial (but it'll put a watermark all over your images) - but you can view the unwatermarked version in the software itself. So you could try Photomatix as a trial and see how you get on.

But even though my post was abit tongue in cheek, it was half serious as well. My fear is that HDR makes you lazy to the extent that you no longer have to think too hard about the right exposure or about what exposure will give you a good creative result when taking the photograph. So my advice would be to tread carefully

[angeleyes216]

these are really excellent..love them

[leonaashlee]

These are pretty wonderful shots Martin....not sure it's such an awful addiction. I love the second two shots....beautiful