HDR - Is it 'natural'

dinners

dinners

In Memoriam
Suspended / Banned
Messages
15,745
Name
Phil
Edit My Images
Yes
Not quite sure how best to word this but I'll have a stab at it.......

Whenever I read a thread or article regarding HDR I'm struck by comments that state that the 'extremes' of dark and light can't be recorded in a single exposure.

I accept this fully and I understand that by combining 'multiple' exposures - HDR enables us to reveal detail in both the light and dark extremes.

With that said - what puzzles me is the view that HDR allows us to replicate the detail we are able to see with our own eyes.

When I look (with my own eyes) at a landscape on a sunny day - I'm able to move my eyes around the scene and see detail in all the light and dark areas 'in turn' but I certainly can't make them out all at once in a single image.

If I stare into the shadows my pupils dilate to let in more light and (even though I'm not looking at the sky) I'm aware that out of the corner of my eye the sky has become far too bright to make out any detail. Likewise if I look at a bright sky I'm aware of the lack of detail in the shadows as my pupils shrink. Not only can my eyes NOT make out both extremes of light and dark at once but they take several seconds before they can record one after the other.

So - with that in mind - how can HDR claim to re-create what our eyes see rather than what a camera sees. To me the limits of a single camera exposure are actually more akin to what our eyes see at any given moment than an HDR image.
 
That's a good point :lol:

I wasn't slagging poor HDR though - nor was I questioning HDR as a technique - more an observation of whether it really does (as some say) give us the image our eyes see.
 
It's a tough call really, and depends entirely on how you tone map the image as to how it looks versus the eye. Sometimes in can be used creatively in a way the human eye can't see it, but I prefer the natural look.

Your question prompted me to edit the middle exposure of three I'd used recently to produce an HDR, so that I could comoare results from the single file, to the HDR. See the shots below-

Single file
img6935n.jpg

HDR file
img69352.jpg
 
As you quite rightly point out, no still photograph (or even a moving one) can ever replicate what we see with our eyes - or rather with our brains.

On a purely technical level, our eyes are three-dimensional scanning devices, with a 180 degree field of view. We only ever look directly at a small area at a time, analyse that, then add it to the next bit, and so on. No small, two-dimensional flat print, no matter how good, can ever accurately match that experience.

What a good photograph attempts to create is an illusion that tricks the brain into recreating an emotional response that simulates reality. Or deliberately distorts it, or recreates it in a visually interesting way.

Take a black and white print for example. How real is that? Not even remotely. Yet somehow it can be made to look very real indeed in terms of the emotional repsonse it provokes. Photographs are clever mind games.

Going back to your point, you could argue that HDR is either more real, if more image information can be discerned by the viewer, or less real if it is pushed too far and the sky actually becomes darker than the grass and a summer's day looks like a thunder storm. It depends entirely on the viewer's emotional response. Hence all the argument I guess ;)
 
The old HDR question again. Where's my popcorn?
 
dinners said:
So - with that in mind - how can HDR claim to re-create what our eyes see rather than what a camera sees. To me the limits of a single camera exposure are actually more akin to what our eyes see at any given moment than an HDR image.
Click to expand...
What you 'see' and what is printed from what is recorded on your chosen medium are never the 'same' and nor do they have to be.

So HDR has its place - as do images of trees taken in infra-red or the high-density blown-out images recorded on black and white negatives and printed on contrasty paper. They are all photographs for people to look at.

Some you'll like some you won't.

So it goes.
 
I think the point of an HDR isn't necessarily to reproduce what we see with our eyes but to add impact to an image. I'm a fan of HDR when it is done properly like mumrar has but unfortunately too many people go way OTT in my opinion
 
I like it. I prefer subtle use of HDR, most people go tone mapping crazy, which looks awful to my eyes.
 
dinners said:
That's a good point :lol:

I wasn't slagging poor HDR though - nor was I questioning HDR as a technique - more an observation of whether it really does (as some say) give us the image our eyes see.
Click to expand...

similarly modern art...impressionism and cubism
they all convey a message

if you want your shot to look like the real thing....well...i leave it up to the individual...and their taste
 
[YOUTUBE]ZaeWrmYIuoM[/YOUTUBE]

popcorn i like :lol:
 
Is there a book about HDR ? and how to get the best ?
 
:p o :p corn:
 
dinners said:
So - with that in mind - how can HDR claim to re-create what our eyes see rather than what a camera sees.
Click to expand...
Because when it's done properly, it does. Unfortunately, most people haven't got a clue what they're doing and do it badly. If HDR tonemapping is done correctly, you can't even tell the process has been used.

dinners said:
To me the limits of a single camera exposure are actually more akin to what our eyes see at any given moment than an HDR image.
Click to expand...
Even the highest end cameras only have a dynamic range of 10-12 stops. The Human eye has a dynamic range of about 24 stops. So, no the limits of a single camera are exactly those. Limits. We're a long way off a camera capable of capturing 24 stops of range hitting the retail market.
 
Photography isn't "realistic". Lenses render perspective differently to the eye, camera sensors/film render images differently to our brains. There isn't much "natural" about photography. HDR is a way of trying to more closely approximate what we can see using a still image. Generally it isn't as effective as we'd like it to be and the result of that is our brains being less likely to accept it as "realistic".
 
I have to agree whilst HDR may be a good technique for increasing the dynamic range of a shot, far to many examples go OTT, the best are those where you are not even sure that it has been used.
 
artyman said:
the best are those where you are not even sure that it has been used.
Click to expand...

Exactly, HDR Tonemapping is an individual tool as part of the whole process. It should be treated no differently than a curves layer or any other adjustment layer in Photoshop.
 
Excuse my ignorance here. I've never used HDR, but looking at those two pics above why is the HDR one a "better" picture? It's a bit different, but what makes it superior to the other?

Is it beauty in the eye of the beholder?
Or is it the King's new clothes?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top