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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

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

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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)

If you are trying to follow someone’s HDR tutorial, you will DEFINITELY get different results than they got if you are not shooting with the exact same sensor.

A single shot on a D3x is like taking two separate shots with an older Canon Rebel about 1 EV stops apart and then blending them in post.  So if a D3x shooter says you only need 3aeb with frames at +/-2EV, you actually need 6aeb at +/-1EV with your older Canon Rebel to get the same gorgeous post production results.  How do I know this?  I’ve shot with both!!!

So you can’t follow tutorials of someone shooting with a D3x if you only have an older Canon Rebel.  Here’s a chart showing some recent DSLRs and their sensor rankings.

What is extremely important to understand is that these numbers show ONLY the absolutes.  Even though a camera may have light show up for 10+ stops does not mean the data is clean throughout the entire histogram.  There is noise in shadows on all of these models.  And the noise print is dramatically different.

If you are shooting with even a brand new APS-C sensor, it more than likely will not have shadows as clean as even a 3yr old model with a full frame sensor.  Even at 100 ISO on both models.  Its just physics.

You can yank FILL LIGHT up to 70 on a Nikon D3 shot and the same scene shot with a Canon 60D might only be able to have FILL LIGHT pulled up to 30 or 35 before breaking down badly.  So the 60D shot never gets to be lightened up as much as the D3 shot.  Again, its mostly physics.  An APS-C sensor is simply much smaller in size than a full frame sensor.

For example, my Canon 60D is a 2010 camera, but its APS-C sensor can not hang at all even at 100 ISO with my 4 year old full frame Nikon D3 sensor shooting at 200 ISO.  And my old and crusty full frame 5D from many years back has better shadow data than the 60D as well (100 ISO on both).

When bracketing you only get extremely clean data in the center/sweet spot of each capture. A camera like a Nikon D3x gives you more clean data in the middle part of the histogram than even a Canon 5D Mark II. So if you have to bracket a huge dynamic range scene with 11 frames spaced 1EV apart with a D3x, you might want to consider bracketing only 2/3rds steps between frames with a 5D Mark II (and increase the number of shots to cover the same dynamic range).  With an APS-C sensor you will often need to go down to 1/3rd EV jumps between frames and take far more shots to cover the same dynamic range in order to caputure the same clean data throughout that range. Basically, the sliver of perfect data of each sensor (per capture) decreases as you move down the scale of the chart provided.

I know this because I’ve delivered nearly 15,000 commercial images that were originally fully bracketed series of 7-15 shots per image.  And I’ve used dozens of cameras from various brands like Pentax, Nikon, Sigma and the worst of dynamic range brands… Canon.  So I’ve done a ridiculous amount testing to try and find the holy grail of HDR capture.  In the end, there is no one camera sensor or system that is perfect, but what I’ve found are general rules that allow you to make sure you get the entire dynamic range of a scene nailed with what system you are currently using.

The D7000 only does 3aeb in camera with a max jump of 2EV between each frame.  For creating commercial quality work, that is insufficient for many scenes.  Many landscapes benefit greatly by capturing from -4 thru +4, preferably with only 1 EV jumps.  The D200/D300/D300s/D2x/D3/D3s/D3x all bracket this much in camera using the 9aeb and maxing out the EV jumps to 1EV per step.  The options are 1/3rd, 2/3rds or 1 full EV jump between each of those frames.  Also, you don’t have to do a 9aeb, the cameras (which vary slightly) can do 2, 3, 5, 7 or 9 AEB (aeb= Automatic Exposure Bracketing).

A 9aeb using those cameras and using the full 1EV jumps between each frame will result in (-4, -3, -2, -1, 0, +1, +2, +3, +4).  When toning your HDR which was captured with that many shots, you’ll get less noise, less banding, reduced color saturation issues, and fewer hue shifts.

3aeb is only useful in about 20-30% of scenes I’ve encountered when shooting non-cloudy day landscapes.  For shooting real estate and architectural interiors, 3aeb is completely insufficient… maybe 10% of interior scenes can be captured properly (hi quality toning) using 3aeb.

About 5-10% of landscapes need even more range captured such as a bracket covering -5 to +5 and for real estate interiors shot on sunny days, about 5-10% of scenes need even more than that range bracketed to fully capture all the highlights and some decent shadow data. These scenes are the ones where the sun is either in frame partially/fully in frame or reflections off of water/glass/metal in important parts of the frame with deep shadows in frame as well.

There has been some confusion about the Nikon D7000 -5 to +5 exposure compensation.  That feature has nothing to do with automatic bracketing (directly), but it can be used in conjunction with AEB.  For example…  you can set exposure compensation to -1 and then when you setup AEB using Aperture Priority, then a 3aeb sequence with +/-2EV will shift by -1 (negative 1EV) for each shot taken.  So instead of taking lets say a 3aeb at -2, 0, +2…. the AEB will be shifted by -1 EV per shot (off the base of how the camera metered the scene) and the resulting 3aeb would be taken at -3, -1, +1 (again, those numbers revolve around the way the camera metered THAT scene).

Exposure compensation is ignored in Manual mode.  That should tell you everything about how it has nothing to do with AEB.  AEB works in manual mode because instead of the camera’s metering system deciding the starting point, you determine it in manual mode.  You are the metering system in M mode.

Now all that said, you can use exposure compensation in aperture priority mode to work your way through capturing more frames for a wide bracket.  But it requires you to touch the camera a few times and it means you might risk moving the camera slightly and won’t be able to align the frames in post.  Also, if lighting changes in the time it takes you to change exposure compensation then your frames in post might not all be exactly 1EV step apart.  So this works best for sunny days where the sun is not shifting behind clouds.

This is what you could do to get a 9 frame bracket…

1. Set up the AEB for 3aeb with 1EV steps.
2. Set the shooting mode to continuous (use a wired/wireless shutter release if possible)
3. Then start out by setting the exposure compensation to -3
4. Fire off a bracket (the AEB will give you -4, -3, -2)
5. Move exposure compensation to 0 (zero)
6. Fire off a bracket (the AEB will give you -1, 0, +1)
7. Move exposure compensation to +3
8. Fire off a bracket (the AEB will give you +2, +3, +4)

Its a hack. Some cameras like Canon have C1, C2, C3 dial settings that allow you to do this with one little turn of the dial, I’ve not looked at the D7000 custom functions so there may be an easier way to program it.

In the end Nikon decided NOT to give the D7000 the 9aeb its more expensive cameras enjoy. Canon does the same thing. 3aeb is better than no-AEB, but 3aeb just …. well…. sucks.

[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

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

Nikon D7000 = Two steps forward, one giant step back (for HDR)

The Nikon D7000 is limited to 3aeb.  BUT! Nikon in their infinite lack of wisdom has decided to further cripple HDR shooters by making that 3aeb limited to maximum steps of only 1EV between frames  (see update *****). Hence “one giant step back”.

***** 36 hours after the D7000 announcment, Nikon updated their website and marketing PDF to reflect a mistake on their part.  The mistake was forgetting to show that the max EV step for the D7000 was 2EV not 1EV as they had previously reported.  The below still applies to attempt to get in three bursts what you can get natively in a D300/D3/D700.

So why did I say “Two steps forward”?  Because the main dial on the top of the camera has dedicated U1 and U2 settings for custom settings.  One could set their U1 dial to have exposure compensation set to -3 and the U2 dial set with exposure compensation set to +3.  That way with three 6fps bursts and two spins of the dial you can end up with a 9 frame bracket from -4 to +4 equal to the bracket you get natively with a D300/D3/D700. Slightly out of order and messy to deal with in LightRoom, Bridge, etc., but at least covers the scene.

One should be able to initially set up a 3aeb with 1EV steps and fire off a bracket at 6fps to capture the frames at -1, 0, +1, then turn to U1 on the dial (previously set for -3 exposure compensation) to capture -4, -3, -2 and then turn the dial to U2 (previously set for +3 exposure compensation) to capture 2, 3, 4 to complete a series from -4 to +4 with 1EV steps.

Simple?  Clean?  No, but at least its an option (based on how I am reading Nikon USA website and camera settings).

1-3-2011 Note:
New Post on Nikon D7000 HDR here…
http://hdriblog.com/nikon-d7000-hdr/

Today I had a real estate shoot cancel, so I got a bunch of past real estate shots edited and then took some time to piece together the Las Vegas Sunset HDR Timelapse.  Because I chose to merge to hdr and tonemap that one single image over the weekend (above) using Photomatix Pro, I thought I’d use Photomatix Pro again for the entire sequence.  What the hell.  Its not for a client so a little over saturation won’t matter here.  I made a few mental mistakes in the pipeline because I generally use other apps, but the results are O.K. for government work  :)

This was the capture/post flow:

Nikon D3  + Nikon 85mm f/1.4D shot through my hotel window on a tripod utilizing the in camera HDR Timelapse (You can combine a timelapse with bracketing in the D3).  I chose to go with a 7AEB with 1EV steps and the camera was firing off that bracket every 15 seconds.  Of the 7AEB I killed off the final over exposed image of each bracket.  I felt adding that latitude would brighten the image too much.  So each merge to HDR was 6 shots spaced 1EV apart.  The total number of tonemapped shots was 90.  Basically covering a span of  22 mins 30 seconds worth of time during the sunset. Both the Merge to HDR and Tonemapping was done in the batch feature of Photomatix Pro.  I then took the tonemapped images into Final Cut Pro for time and color treatment before exporting for YouTube & Vimeo.

Because I shot this sequence in portrait mode, I opted to make slight color correction differences to two versions and post one video with both playing together.  I should have pushed on image a lot harder to show variation.  Now that I’ve watched it online it seems very subtle.

I also simultaneously shot a HDR Timelapse a foot away from the D3 with a Canon T2i in horizontal mode as wide as the kit lens will go (18mm for that EF-S, but on a crop body).  I shot for a full hour with the T2i.  About 15 minutes prior to setting up the D3 and the same after the D3 exhausted the compact flash I had in it.  It will be interesting to see those results versus the D3.

I’m no expert when it comes to compression/encoding.  I can only say that the video looks a hell of a lot better in FCP than online!

Vimeo 720p Version LINKED HERE (opens in a new window)

I got a ton of shots, but didn’t shoot as often as I had thought because of a few time consuming reasons. I had food poisoning one night/day as well as both speaking briefly in the Post Pit at NAB and also spending two days trying to see all there was to see at the NAB Show itself (which is so big, that words fail to describe).

More to come next week, but I have back to back to back shoots lined up with builders this week for properties that have to be shot right away.  Its torture not being able to process the Vegas stuff right away, but all in good time.

Another quick HDR capture I chose to tonemap via Photomatix Pro
(Those two images will likely be the last I run through Photomatix Pro for some time. I’m just not thrilled with the way it handles color and has more than subtle hue shifts that cause saturation/hue issues)
http://www.digitalcoastimage.com/vegas/test-50mm.html

More to come soon…

|||—— 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.