So has anyone on here had a play with HDR photography yet? I had a quick go the other day but it turned out baaad .

For those who might not know, HDR is short for High Dynamic Range and is a series of different exposure photos stitched together into one photograph, where the idea is that everything is in optimum exposure. It can produce some very weird effects because of this, for example -

and also give a cartoon like effect

what software did you use? photomatrix is the weapon of choice.

HDR is handy, as long as it isn't over done. really.. all it should be used for is compensating for a lack of dynamic range on the camera - not making cartoons!

i had a bit of play;



but because of the way i process a lot of my images in lightroom, they can look slightly HDR even when they're not really.

like this isn't HDR, but i've been accused of it!

Hi arc, i should add that they weren't my photographs , but yes for my own efforts i used photomatix. I couldn't decide though which method to go with - adjusting exposure compensation, or varying the shutter speed. Varying the shutter i would assume gives better results?

Assuming you are using aperture priority mode, then it is the same thing. Exposure compensation just alters the calculation that the camera uses. If you using shutter priority then altering ev will alter the aperture size to compensate. I use braketting on my camera for hdr. It'll take one shot over exposed, one under and then one "correctly"

Do you find that three is usually enough for a decently exposed HDR ?

usually, yeah. just have a look at what you've taken, check them using the histogram on the camera and you should see it has enough info in it.