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I know I keep beating this HDR drum, but it’s a good beat.

After 2 months of dealing with health crud, I recently had to shoot in wicked harsh lighting conditions.  These days were not perfectly sunny blue sky days, but rather what I refer to as “White Haze”.  I say that because it is almost like a white sky with a hint of cyan.  Bad air, atmosphere issues, whatever you want to blame it on, the air quality has been terrible during this severe drought along the Emerald Coast of florida.

HDR to the rescue.  Many times I’m fighting the over saturation that can occur when merging brackets, but in this case I didn’t pull back at all and needed those under exposed frames desperately to pull some color that did not appear in the middle/normal exposures.

The first gallery was for a client that I first shot for in 2006 and delivered some pretty over tonemapped work.  Well guess what.  They liked that “look”.  Go figure.  So I let the first set be plenty colorful and saturated and the windows will look less blown out and more like paintings than I care to deliver these days, but what the client wants (and pays for)… the client gets.

http://www.digitalcoastimage.com/resorts/2669/index.html

The second gallery was for a home that is owner occupied and the shoot could not be rescheduled. This day was probably the worst air quality I’ve seen in years. The sky was bright as can be but lacking a pure blue.  A very nasty “White Haze” persisted for the 2 hour shoot.  I had to work through cats, dogs and family running around preparing for the 4th of July weekend otherwise I’d have been in and out in under an hour.

Again, HDR to the rescue.  And even with HDR, the one living room shot I posted at the top of this blog post with windows in frame I could just not make look like most of my other work.  The sky at that point was completely WHITE to the eye.  Not cloudy, just so hazy and yet bright that you’d squint fiercely as you look out the window.  A circular polarizer didn’t help at all.  Only HDR and the under exposed frames allowed a hint of blue/cyan to come through.  And this is not some joke of a bracket like 3aeb that HDR newbies thinks can work for real estate.  This was an 11 aeb +/-1EV steps.

http://www.digitalcoastimage.com/resorts/4097/index.html

[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

|||—— UPDATED FOR NEW CAMERAS TESTED BY DXOmark.com —–|||

What is important and relevant to HDRI is the dynamic range of your sensor. It really matters.  Unless you taking large and tight brackets of each scene then it really, really, REALLY matters even moreso than you think.  If you are following a technique taught by someone using say a D3x and they tell you all you need is X shots, but you are using a camera at the bottom of the chart below and taking the same number… there is no way you can match that person’s results. Its mathematically impossible.

I get asked all the time how many shots do I take when I shoot, but nobody asks me with what camera.  Everyone assumes they are all about the same for HDR.  They aren’t.

Gear used for capturing brackets for HDR is even more critical if you are only taking 3 shots.  It will directly impact the quality of your HDR file. IF YOU ARE SHOOTING FOR VFX WORK THIS IS SLIGHTLY LESS CRITICAL THAN IF YOU WILL BE TONEMAPPING FOR REALISM (only slightly less though).

I’ve captured and tonemapped over 13,000 images for architecture, real estate and commercial shoots.  I’ve forfeited all my vacation time the last 4 years just to do intensive testing about what works better.  Gear, post production, you name it.

I’m pretty obsessive compulsive about trying to get a realistic looking image for real estate interiors and I’ve bought and/or rented about 40% of the cameras on this list below. DXOmark.com seems on the mark as far as my personal results are concerned.

Dynamic Range of Camera Sensors (I chose to focus on modern day digital models only)

No test is perfect. DXOmark has attempted to do this objectively, but because ISO/Noise and how cameras can handle scenes, colors and other differing factors, this should not be the only way to base your purchasing decision.  For example…

Someone could use the Canon 1000D (also known as the Canon XS) plus a piece of gear to get pro HDR captures.

If you bought that entry level Canon 1000D/XS for $400+ and a PROMOTE CONTROL for $299, (which will soon be adding HDR Timelapse to its functions in addition to HDR capture and standard Timelapse), then you could take very large and tight brackets with the Promote Control attached to your 1000D/XS that will capture well beyond what the in camera AEB capabilities of every single camera on that chart above.  Yes, including a D3x or 1Ds Mark III.  Sometimes the piece of “kit” you add to the mix can make a lower end device perform very well (dynamic range speaking here).  Of course the pixel quality of a D3x/1DsMarkIII is easily better than a Canon XS, but at the cost of $8000 it should be.

The Nikon D3 was announced August of 2007

The Nikon D700 was announced July of 2008

The Nikon D3s was announced October 2009

The Nikon D700s …

Nobody knows.   But when I saw people on forums and on blogs saying the D700s should release soon back in summer of 2009, I knew they were wrong simply because there was no way Nikon was going to miss out on D3s sales.  So I said in a blog post last summer that the D3s would release first simply based on corporate philosophy. Nikon looks at everything in dollars and cents regardless if timing for us makes sense (and in a way timing for them doesn’t always make good business sense, but they ignore common sense just as Canon, etc. does at times).

Fast forward to pre-PMA.  It was quickly approaching and the same level of anticipation began online hoping for the Nikon D700s.  Based on past camera releases it was very unlikely they would have announced the D700s at PMA given the D3s had only been well stocked for a few weeks across the country.  Still no D700s release dates and I’m not at all surprised.

Given “Photokina 2010″ is later this year, they ‘may’ wait for that event to announce the D700s.  ”May”.  Personally I think that would be a mistake given the pent up demand for the D700s.  The amount of google searches that happen daily for D700s – Nikon D700s – D700s Release Date etc is astounding.  People want that full frame with insane low light capabilities, video and an autofocus system that is so far above and beyond the Canon 5D mark II that you can’t really compare the two cameras equally.  From a stills only comparison, the D700s wins over the 5D mark II in dynamic range, autofocus and low light abilities (the sensor will be the same as the D3s when the D700s releases, hence the ability to compare).  However, for video… to be fair, the 5D mark II’s video quality and resolution are currently beyond that of the D3s and likely the D700s when released.

If you are wondering why I’m even focusing on the D700s, well… I want one      My D3 is awesome, but I’d love to have video in it.  I was going to get the D3s and sell the D3, but opted to just wait and add a D700s as a backup body instead.

Of course Nikon might just skip a generation and release some other camera with a new moniker ( D800 etc. ).   I have no inside info.  I’m only referencing the D700s because it makes logical sense to just follow the D3s as they did the D3 with the D700. Hopefully they don’t take the nearly 11 months they did with the D3 then D700 schedule.  If they do then Photokina 2010 is a logical place to do so.  Seems far to predictable for anyone to be surprised if they wait… so why wait? Capture pre-summer sales and get the thing announced in the next 60 days and shipping before summer begins.