Night Time HDR tutorials

[russellsnr]

Hi, Can anyone direct me to a link for Night Time HDR tutorials.
Prefer video ones but read only would be great.

 

[MWHCVT]

You don't really need HDR for most night time photos, generally it's about managing your exposure with a view to processing if the scene is quite dynamic, as a rule I find shadows are easier to save than highlights so will generally look to over expose the highlights just a little them process the RAW to both perform a touch of highlight recovery and also recover some details out the shadows this is easier as you've already got the benefit of the slight over exposure

This is again made easier by shooting in the earlier evening within an hour of sunset as there will still be ambient light around to help balance the exposure...to some extent you have to accept a certain degree of blown highlights but obviously you don't want to have highlights that's distract from the image...

As an example this is one I shot in a local town in the early evening I'd estimate about 30 minutes after sunset as you can see the majority of the scene is clear and you can see detail I'd say in about 98% of the scene, there are 3/4 blown highlights but those are mainly in the street lights and personally I don't mind that..they only to me look bad when you over recover the highlight leaving shapes within the light...


202/366 (567) by mwhcvt, on Flickr

Processing the highlight went through some recovery, mainly to dim places like the gated arch and the church tower and the darker areas such as the stone walls of the building have had a little recovery to brighten then and bring out detail further

Hope it helps

 

[RichardTaylor]

+1 on the above suggestion.
I have tried a few nightime HDR's, usually in the blue hour or with clouds lit up and I feel just a single exposure, with careful processing, gives a better result.