Camera, Lens, Tripod …. and very limited time to shoot right at high noon (high contrast).

Click to View Larger Version

It’s what I first began shooting myself and later got used to coping with.  Basically,…

• No formal knowledge of the property
• No prior prep time or staging time alotted
• No time to bring in external lighting
• No time to waste…  basically… HDR to the rescue

Here’s some typical “Camera + Lens + Tripod” shoots.  Some new, some relatively recent…

VRBO Listing for new client wanting to stand out above the rest

Sandestin Burnt Pine MLS Listing

VRBO Shoot for existing client that values (through bookings) high end photos

MLS Shoot for Existing Client (has sold 90% of listings I shot in 60 days or less)

click for larger image

I’ve had quite a few photographers ask me about shooting for realtors.  Yes I do.  I’m not sure what they are looking to hear for details, but yes I do market to and shoot for realtors.  Here are some MLS shoots specifically.  These were shot in the last couple of months to keep food on the table.

http://www.digitalcoastimage.com/DBTS/index.html

http://www.digitalcoastimage.com/403/index.html

http://www.digitalcoastimage.com/egroup/niceville/index.html

http://www.digitalcoastimage.com/77_Siesta_Bluff/index.html

http://www.digitalcoastimage.com/DBTS_4647/index.html

http://www.digitalcoastimage.com/egroup/ssands114/index.html

http://www.digitalcoastimage.com/egroup/waters_edge/index.html

I’ve also shot for custom home builders, etc, etc, … but this is just a peek at MLS specific shoots.  You’ll notice nearly every shot is full wide angle view and no tight crops. The reason is Realtors can easily get tight crops with their point and shoots, but they lean on me to get WIDE.

I’m very excited about this lens.  Moreso to use on the coming Sigma SD1, but I have been very pleased with the results on my Canon 60D.  A few samples here on this link:

http://www.digitalcoastimage.com/sigma/8-16mm/index.html

The new FD glass sigma implemented deals with glare quite well.  Perfect for bracketing for HDR in difficult lighting environments.

Previously I had discussed using the 60D with the new 8-16mm:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ma7TUysv7l8[/youtube]

This image was taken using the “HDR” SCN dial mode available in the G12.  It excels in daylight conditions.  Amazing in fact.  But other situations are not as favorable.

I was asked by a real estate agent to take a dozen or so “view” shots and due to the low amount they budgeted, I opted to use the Canon G12 and the SCN mode using the in camera HDR.  Given it was outdoors in strong daylight conditions I knew I could get away with using the G12.

The following gallery of shots is not perfect, but took only a half an hour of my time to shoot and email pics to the agent.  Pretty amazing for a Point and Shoot.

http://www.digitalcoastimage.com/bellavita/views/index.html

There are two ways to approach HDR capture with the Canon G12.

The first option to capture HDR on the Canon G12 is to shoot RAW and while in Aperture Priority mode you can choose to shoot a 3 aeb sequence.  In Aperture Priority you of course control the aperture, but you can also control ISO and White Balance settings. You control what the EV steps between each shot are set to from as little as 1/3rd EV steps up to 2 full EV jumps between the 3 shots.

You would then import those raws and insert them into whatever workflow you currently use for HDR processing.  Yes I am not a fan of 3aeb, but for a point and shoot and to capture raw… I’ll take what I can get.

The second option to capture HDR on the Canon G12 is to use the SCN mode dial and choose HDR.  That puts the camera in fully automatic mode and it fires 3 consecutive shots off at undisclosed details for shutter/EV jumps and then does the high dynamic range imaging (toning) in camera and writes the file to .jpg as a file format.  (Why camera manufacturers choose JPEG as a file format to save a high dynamic range image is beyond logic)

What I can tell you right away is that this camera does very well shooting in the SCN mode shooting HDR when in bright sunny conditions.  But is awful for shooting indoors in mixed lighting.  In the SCN HDR Mode, you have NO CONTROL over aperture, ISO or white balance.  As soon as you hit interior lighting the camera goes to f/2.8 as a first line of defense…. this is a disaster for real estate or architectural photography.

Another big downside is that you have no way of using exposure compensation in the fully automatic SCN HDR Mode. There is no way to force the camera up or down by any EV amount. The camera just meters the scene and that is your only option.

I’ll be doing a full review of the capabilities of the Canon G12 as it relates to HDR (next week or two). However, because there has been so much interest in the G12′s HDR capabilities I’ll make a few brief comments now regarding the SCN HDR Mode and reserve the video review for later next week.

QUICK TAKES regarding SCN HDR Mode:

Pros:

• Great for daylight white balanced shots with lots of light
• Superior in camera processing compared to Sony and Pentax models
• Supports Canon RS60-E3 release cable so you don’t have to touch camera

Cons:

• No control of aperture, ISO or exposure compensation
• No control of white balance (AWB only)
• Zero in camera alignment from what I have found – Tripod only
• Slow frames per second which adds to deghosting issues

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ma7TUysv7l8[/youtube]

Topics discussed:

• Canon 60D
• Sigma 8-16mm f/4.5-5.6 DC HSM
• Nikon D3
• Nikon 14-24mm f/2.8G
• Promote Control
• 1D / 1Ds AEB functions
• 3aeb sucks

This offer expires December 1st!

Shooting and editing for real estate and architectural interiors is a whole different beast than landscapes and non-commercial work.  The list of gotchas is long, here’s the short one.

You know the culprits… mixed lighting, massive dynamic range scenes most HDR apps choke on, reflections and glare, shooting directly at glass/windows/mirrors where flash is not an option, regaining window frames from massive back lit situations where light wrap causes loss of detail, shooting real estate with live talent in frame (no strobes), and on and on goes the list of fun shooting interiors.

I’ve been getting emails asking if they missed the launch of my HDR Training for Real Estate and Architectural Photography.  You didn’t miss the official announcement… it’s getting closer, but right now only those in the initial beta group are getting the training videos.

Why is it taking so long to get the training finished? Simple,… because I am a working photographer.

Yes, it has been coming along slowly thusfar, but it is about to kick into high gear.  I’ve cleared the decks for December.  I am ONLY creating training during the month of December.  The official launch of the HDR Training and when the site will go live is now targeting January (URL to be provided at time of launch).

The training I’m providing allows you to have access to me to ask questions via email and even via phone if we can match our schedules.  Ditto via skype for out of the country english speaking folks.  Hence why this training is not dirt cheap.

In fact one of the training videos already created and available for download now was created because one of the photographers in the beta group asked me to show how to incorporate live talent with HDR for an architectural interior product shoot.  It is possible that one of your questions might end up turning into a video tutorial as well if I think it will benefit the group.

I’ve gotten emails from a few of you asking if you can join the beta now even though all the videos and training are not fully complete. The answer is yes, BUT only if you understand that there is no concrete date as to when all the videos will be done. The target is by the first week of January.  Currently there are over two hours of training finished and available for download.  They are 1280×720 hi quality H.264 movies for viewing on a computer.

Once all the videos are done it will encompass everything I do from capture to post.  What is complete and available now are a handful of techniques that will be used in the full workflow/pipeline.

What is being shot this week is …. what I take  to a shoot, do at a shoot (and why) and then I show you various workflows to edit in post. For post production, I’m showing various workflows that work on both Mac and PC.  It is important to reiterate that the training I’m offering here is ongoing… as in perpetual. I say perpetual, but a more accurate statement would be that the training will continue until I no longer need to implement a hdri pipeline simply because in 10yrs it will probably all be done in camera and in one shot anyway.

Until then, I can promise you that you’ll always have my best imaging pipeline for High Dynamic Range Imaging.  What I’m teaching will either slightly alter in the coming months or change completely.  That means in the future I’ll need to create new videos to replace the current ones as I improve my workflow or find cool work arounds.  Hence the reason this training is not dirt cheap.

As hot as HDR is currently and is getting, .. it virtually guarantees that new apps will appear or existing apps will get updated.  I test the heck out of them and many of the companies creating them invite me to their betas so I usually have an opinion or a leg up on the apps when they release.  I’ve found little workflow enhancements that you probably have not implemented yourself that will give you better results for editing in a HDRI pipeline. Some of what I’ve shown in the videos have already helped those currently in the beta group despite some of them being very experienced in HDR.

My current preferred pipeline for post production changed dramatically a couple of years ago and new ones have emerged as well.  I have a few post production workflows I’ll be showing.  One of which I use for what I call “quick turns“ where a realtor needs pics turned quickly and I have automation steps in that workflow.  (This is a video that releases in about mid December).

Another workflow is going to show my pipeline for HDR Timelapse sequences shot for architectural interiors.  And another two pipelines showing my highest level of quality for magazine level submissions.  Many of my approaches are specifically geared for dealing with the nightmares of shooting architectural interiors.

“Been there done that“.  I’m not bragging, just saying I’ve suffered more than you!!!

I’ve been shooting real estate using a high dynamic range imaging pipeline exclusively since 2005. I’ve run up against all the problems you likely already have yourself, or haven’t had the displeasure of experiencing yet. You don’t need massively expensive gear, but technique and post production are key.

I’m incredibly anal and I tinker with apps and new approaches all the time.  Always looking for a more efficient pipeline.  A few photographers that thought they had settled in for a workflow they created have either completely changed gears or implemented the tweaks I’ve shown them once I revealed some workflow enhancements.  You’ll see.

I had nobody to learn from when I started with HDR, I just tinkered with every app there was and found ways to get commercially viable images.  I never found anything online about HDR because in 2005 there wasn’t anyone using it exclusively for real estate.  So I never knew some folks had created dos and don’ts and rules about bracketing.  I would just test things out without fretting about what you are or are not supposed to do or how to treat RAWs or files in post.  I would just think about what I needed to do to best exploit the scene and best compress the dynamic range down.

The video training is currently distributed via temporary download links from YouSendIt, etc. You just click the link and download the hi res videos to your computer for viewing.  Eventually all of these will also be online once the website is live. The site isn’t online yet and as such neither is any online payment system.  So if you’d like to join the beta, you can send me a check, pay via paypal, pay me by sending me an Amazon Gift Card, or pay via visa/mastercard through my business merchant account (either with a form I’d email for you to fill in and fax back or I could take your credit card info over the phone).

The emails I use for PayPal and Amazon are not the same as the one you’d email me to join the beta.  So start by sending me an email asking about payment options to digitalcoastimage@gmail.com

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To join the training with the rest of the beta group now, is $499.

The price for the same training when officially launched will be $750 per student (that’s not a typo).

I’ve already found that the amount of time I spend answering emails and phone calls warrants the tuition to be as such. And it is worth repeating again.  The training is ONGOING.

If you shoot timelapse and you are trying to squeeze every ounce out of shadows and pull in as much highlight detail as possible, then pay close attention to this chart.

If you only bracket 3aeb when shooting for HDR, then pay very close attention to this chart.  Your 3aeb is only as good as your sensor can cover (in Dynamic Range).  Lower Dynamic Range sensors result in banding and heavy noise issues when shooting high dynamic range scenes and only bracketing 3aeb.

Results will vary widely if you shoot 3aeb with a dynamic range monster like the Nikon D7000 versus the other (3aeb max) DSLRs at the bottom of the chart below.

<<< The good news is if you bracket tighter and wider than 3aeb, you can capture virtually any scene with ANY of the lowest ranked sensors below and still capture the entire dynamic range of the scene.  BUT!!! … only if you are willing to bracket 8-12 frames spaced 2/3rds to 1EV apart (scene dependent) >>>

*** I underlined the cameras released in the last few months

PROS

• I am obsessed with Nik’s patented U Point® technology to add control points to target very specific areas in an image.  In HDR Efex Pro this means you can dial in exposure to specific points of the image in 32 bit space that can’t be done in other apps.  You can adjust contrast/saturation, etc., (the same sliders which are available for the entire image) as well as adjusting the tonemapping method strength for that precise region of the image you are targeting… this is my number one favorite feature. What used to have to be done with multiple layers in photoshop with multiple tonemapped versions of a scene can now be done in HDR Efex Pro using control points.
• A large number of TMOs (Tone Mapping Operators) to choose from. Not only do you have a slider that adjusts the strength of the tonemapping operator,  you can chose from different tonemapping operators and each gives you slightly different results with some more aggressive than others to deal with night scenes and others more natural to deal with landscapes, commercial work, etc.
• Tons of presets to get you started. Categorized and named to give you one click looks as a starting point. And you can create your own presets as well.
• You can select brackets from LightRoom, Aperture, Photoshop CS3/CS4/CS5 or Bridge to launch into HDR Efex Pro.
• You can select (from Photoshop interface) to have HDR Efex Pro to be opened as a smart object so on the return back from Tonemapping, it remains in 32 bit space as a layer in Photoshop.  This means it can be relaunched again with the settings just made still intact so you can change them. If you copy that layer and relaunch you can make changes and then upon return from HDR Efex Pro you can choose to compare/contrast the versions in the layers palette and even mask in parts of one to the other.  The options are endless.
• You can use prior images you had saved to 32 bit formats to open and tonemap in HDR Efex Pro.
• The image you get in the preview window while tonemapping is what you are going to get when you hit save. Other apps don’t always give you an accurate preview image, but HDR Efex Pro is very precise and the preview window is very accurate.

CONS

• Highlights turn grey and lose fine detail as you pull down exposure in very high dynamic range scenes. This is mostly a problem for extremely high contrast scenes such as architectural interiors (Highlight rendering was improved from early beta versions, but still needs improvement to be useful for architectural interiors).
• Lacks a white balance tool to accurately correct for color. It only has a Warmth slider which of course is basically yellow/blue, but lacks magenta/green and cyan/red controls to correct for color casts. This is most relevant if you merge directly to HDR rather than make tweaks first in LightRoom/Aperture and then merge those tiffs to HDR Efex Pro.
• HDR Efex Pro still has trouble rendering reds even in the v1 release (reds are still over saturating and clipping in some images, but Nik is working on it)
• Still issues with crashing in 32 bit versions of Photoshop (CS3/CS4) as of release.  Nik is stating official support is for 64 bit applications and that 32 bit support is to be worked on further.  That said, it does work for me in PSCS3 and CS4 with some occasional crashes from time to time.
• No batch processing. Not a deal killer, but would be a great feature to add in future releases.

I’ll have another review with more example images at some point in the next month or so, but below is a shot of Hard Rock Cafe in Las Vegas to showcase a few issues I’m bumping into. In other apps I was able to pull down highlights without them going grey as fast as happened using HDR Efex Pro.  I liken this to going “muddy grey” and it attracts attention to the lack of detail in them as well.  Also, the reds are saturating and clipping using HDR Efex Pro on images with more orange/red hues, whereas other apps are not experiencing these issues with the same image. I love the control points, but the fact that HDR Efex Pro isn’t rendering highlights completely clean (yet) when tonemapping high dynamic range scenes makes it difficult to pull windows for architectural interiors.

Click to view 1200 pixel wide version

I’m very pleased when editing landscapes and more artistic scenes with HDR Efex Pro.  Until I find a workaround or until Nik improves the rendering of bright highlights compared to other HDR apps I won’t be using it for architectural interiors.

The training is specific to implementing HDR techniques.  It is in no way, shape or form about how to frame your shots or anything along the lines of the business of architectural photography.

I’ve posted a full 24 minute review of one HDR application that I use mostly for HDR Timelapse. The video is not as structured as my training course, but it at least lets you hear my voice and get a feel for a new application in the process.

I’ve been putting together video tutorials for the last two months behind the scenes and I’m creating more in the next few weeks as well.  All revolving around various workflows and strategies for capturing and editing high dynamic range scenes typical with shooting architectural photography (especially interiors).

Many of my clients are rental companies that rent condos and homes along the florida beaches where I live.  Some of my rental company clients encourage me to over crank their shots to brighten the rooms up as well as over saturate the scenes slightly to create an emotive feel (their terminology, not mine).  Hence why you’ll see some very heavily processed shots in this 120 image sample gallery of employing HDRI for Architectural Photography.

Even though the various workflows I’ll cover will focus on architectural interiors, the techniques are applicable to virtually any high dynamic range scene.  I’ll also be covering landscapes and shooting / editing HDR Timelapse.  This is an example of some HDR Timelapse I shot over the last year.

If you are interested in receiving notification about the training when available, email me using the email at the bottom of this page (from my main site) and title the email HDR Training or something similar.

I’ll be covering various workflows using various applications so it would be helpful if you tell me what operating system you primarily work on (Mac / PC and what version of operating system like 10.6 for OSX or say Windows XP Pro for PC).  Also include what apps you currently use for typical raw processing workflow and what version of photoshop you are using as well as any 3rd party HDR plugins or applications you use.

I do not plan to abandon this blog.  I will likely mirror many of the posts over at HDR Labs here and I’m sure there will be times I want to discuss non-HDR information that might just be basic photography gear or such, and will post those here rather than clutter HDR Labs blog.

Many of you have also expressed interest in some form of training from myself and I have actually been working on a few projects at once so I’ll share what is going to emerge in the weeks and months ahead.

I have just crossed the threshold of having shot roughly 14,000 HDRs that I tonemapped into final JPEG/TIFF formats for commercial delivery for clients (mostly incredibly high dynamic range real estate scenes).  Because of this extensive experience with tackling exposure day to day for going on 5 years now, I have a unique view of HDR from a production pipeline point of view.  I’ve also shot and edited well over 1000 landscapes which were bracketed, merged to HDR and tonemapped, “for fun”.  I’m quite familiar with the dos, don’ts and work arounds relating to HDR Capture and Post Processing.

That said, a few things are in the very early stages of planning for eBooks, Video Training, Workshops and/or One on One Training.  These are the concepts I’m working on:

1. A beginner’s guide to HDR from my vantage point (from capture to final edit).  I’ll cover the best HDR apps to merge to HDR and tonemap (on both the PC and the Mac).
2. Advanced techniques for going beyond basic tone mapping and extensively tweaking RAW images as a 1st step BEFORE merging to HDR.  Also, how to utilize layers in 32 bit space in Photoshop “BEFORE” moving on to tonemapping or luminance blending techniques. How to sweeten and further enhance tonemapped TIFFs in Photoshop for perfect color clarity and color balance of mixed lighting and/or final exposure issues.
3. A workshop specifically aimed at Real Estate and Architectural Photographers (either group workshop or one-on-one training). I won’t be teaching basics or staging. The focus will be about how to either shoot exclusively with only available light in a HDR post production pipeline or how to integrate HDR along with your flash / continuous lighting frames taken to enhance lighting and add a new touch to your work. I will open pandora’s box and show you all the tips and tricks I use from capture through post production.