However, it my self portrait it is 3 bracketed shots and is the full HDR process. You can watch the tutorial and see exactly how I pulled that off. With the newer, faster cameras you can pop off three frames very quickly and get the images you need for HDR processing.

We use 5 stop HDR on all our architectural and real estate photos. I even use this technique on my QTVR panoramas. I had not considered doing this with portraits. You must be using the single frame process in RAW and generating the over/under frames. Yes?

Thank for the information, keep up the great work.

John

Well said!

As an instructor who teaches HDR techniques, I consistently tell participants in workshops, “… the opportunity for creative tone-mapping is limitless.” Moreover, the client likes the look of the tone-mapped image as they are truly seeing what the scene looks like.

Unlike an image crafted via film, the HDR capture (whether it be a single-frame conversion or multi-frame sequence), then tone-mapped image is far beyond the “lies” we have been telling with film all these years. The greater adjustment is on the part of the photographer to see differently – this seems more difficult than for the customer for some reason.

You are most definitely correct in stating HDR is no longer a trend. Developed in the 1990′s by academics in an MIT lab, it’s first applications were for the movie industry. Photomatix Pro is currently the better application out there as it was developed by photographers for photographers. Moreover, the developers listen to their users and consistently make improvements to the application. It gets better and easier every turn of the way. Major camera manufacturers are installing HDR/Tone-mapping software in the camera itself: witness, the Nikon D300s; Pentax K7; Sony Alpha 900 (I believe this was the model); and, a host of others following.

My advice to the professional crowd… learn to use this tool, capitalize on its tremendous creative range, and embrace the change which is hitting this 175+ year old craft – it’s not going away and is only going to get better. In fact, on location the other day, I had a client insist I do multi-frame capture for tone-mapping because a friend of theirs just had some work done and the photographer (who I happen to know) used the technique and they were blown away by it! In other words… the clients are now demanding it.

All the best… Happy HDR Shooting to all!

Respectfully,
Richard S Hockett, MBA, DTM
Owner: SunRidge Photo
Business Professor: Brooks Institute