Motorcycles in HDR - Post Yours Here!

I'm also enjoying your HDR photo's Dave, and the thread in general - I've kept dipping into it from time to time. I seem to remember reading somewhere that you can create a number of different exposure values from a single RAW image. Does that sound right? I've just bought a Nikon D5100 and it's the first camera I've had that'll shoot RAW (NEF) images, so I'll have to do some research and experiment from there.
The HDR simulation from my iPhone is, frankly, rubbish. But for those with Photoshop CS5, 5.5. or 6 (I don't know if previous versions have it) there is the HDR Toning feature in the Image > Adjustments menu. It has a number of useful presets (e.g. High Contrast Photorealistic, High Contrast Monochrome, etc.) but these can be adjusted and altered at will.



EDIT/UPDATE: Additional info from http://www.flickr.com/groups/raw2hdr/
"About HDR from a single RAW

To get the best from HDR (High Dynamic Range) images one should really plan ahead and use bracketed exposures right from the camera.

Sometimes however this is not possible, such as in action shots, or perhaps you merely wish to rescue a shot that has under or overexposed areas that can't be corrected by other means. If you shoot in RAW, as I do, you can create bracketed exposures from a single RAW file and use these to produce HDR images. Perhaps not as good as HDRs planned and executed from start to finish but certainly good enough to rescue a shot you like that suffers from exposure problems."

So, as you say Dave, bracketed exposure is the best way to go but it's also possible from a single image too, with some preprocessing to give you 3 or 5 (or whatever) images from a single shot.

Those last ones are impressive, the moonlight ride and the MotoShow ones.

JimRidesThis,

Back around page 13 I posted quite a few examples of single exposures converted to HDR. You do not need to shoot in RAW, although you can recover more detail from RAW. Post 189 is a tutorial on how I convert and process single JPEGs. Have fun!

Took this one last fall.

Thanks Dave, I just had a look now. I'll have a play with an old jpg images in Photomatix - watch this space

Jim

The original jpg...

<img src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8084/8431238992_13871c6221.jpg" width="500" height="329" alt="pre hdr1">

The HDR version - four different exposure values and 5 minutes in Photomatix and Photoshop...

<img src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8091/8430154835_1d90c1299a_z.jpg" width="640" height="421" alt="hdr1">

By no means a perfect image and I think I might have toned back the HDR processing a bit too much. I didn't want an over-processed image though so I'm happy with this as a first attempt.

I'll be back

Jim

Well I had no idea how dirty my image sensor was until I took a 3 bracketed exposure and ran it through photomatix. There were giant blobs all in those dramatic skies, but it does interesting things with just a single RAW shot. As I understand it, you shoot with aperture priority so as to get the same depth of field in each exposure? No bike pics until I clean my sensor.

The Dragon....

JimRidesThis, That's an awesome first attempt. The original demonstrates perfectly why HDR is sometimes needed. An over-exposed sky and under-exposed foreground was corrected perfectly in the HDR version. I like it!

Nice one Mike M. A single exposure HDR is sometimes the only option for action shots.

I think it looks pretty good!
You brought out the lost color at the bottom and still kept the patch of blue sky at the top.

Ok, my first post on the forum might as well be in here

My Tiger a couple of years back, stopped on the desert road in New Zealand during a 1000Km day trip.
3 shots 2 stops apart finished in Photomatix / Lightroom

Sweet photo!!

JG

Nice photo and bike, sizzlingbadger. Welcome to the forum!

From our ride this weekend

Outstanding, Geek!

I took a spin out on the Apache Trail this evening.

I love this topic... Great pictures everyone!!