You are thinking of it from a computer science perspective: more bits = more dynamic range. This is true inside the computer.
Photography doesn't occur inside of a computer. A photographic capture device can only capture so many stops of light (analog dynamic range, ie: max light level before clipping & min light level the sensor will pickup). This is true with film and digital capture. It doesn't matter how many bits you throw at the issue, one exposure can only capture so many stops.
With multiple exposures, software can TONE MAP the hightlights & midtones from the darkest exposure to the hightlights of the HDR image, the Shadows & midtone from the brightest exposure are mapped into the shadows of the HDR image and in the medium exposure an extra-wide band of mid tone is compressed into the midtones of the HDR image. You can use even more exposures if you are a real masochist to potentially open up more dynamic range
The way a photographer thinks of HDR is in stops that can be captured and conveyed in a file or print in a file or on a print.
Black is Black whether the file is 8, 16 or 32 bits a channel. Same with white.
I'm not suggesting that high bit depth is a bad thing. I convert all my images to 16bit ProPhoto RGB from Lightroom when editing and only save down to an 8bit image in sRGB or AdobeRGB as a final step before delivery.
Of course, once you have made an HDR original you may very well want to edit it and there will still be deep shadow and bright highlight areas that would benefit dodging & burning. creating a high bit depth original HDR file will make these edits much higher quality.
A sample taken tonight of the first high-level clouds of the approaching tropical storm in the opposite direction of the setting sun. No modification was done to the images, taken on an iPhone 4, uploaded with iPhoto, and exported with "Large" size and "High" JPEG quality.
Not sure about you, but I like the No HDR version way better. I'm sure HDR is useful in some cases, but I think a lot of people are going to leave it turned on all the time and get slow performance and worse photos.
A sample taken tonight of the first high-level clouds of the approaching tropical storm in the opposite direction of the setting sun. No modification was done to the images, taken on an iPhone 4, uploaded with iPhoto, and exported with "Large" size and "High" JPEG quality.
Not sure about you, but I like the No HDR version way better. I'm sure HDR is useful in some cases, but I think a lot of people are going to leave it turned on all the time and get slow performance and worse photos.
HDR is like every other photographic technique (or artistic technique in general).
Sometimes it is just what is needed. Sometimes it as crap and destroys the whole work.
The problem is that the marketing of photographic gear promises every new feature is going to make you the next ansel adams or cartier-bresson. Everyone knows on some level this is not true, but we still want to believe the hype.
I don't do HDR myself, mostly because I never shoot unmoving things....Except my girlfriend's jewelry which I shoot for her website. In that case, I have got a nice enough little studio purpose built where my dynamic range is well under control with no software trickery. Ideally, every photog should probably use other techniques to get the shot, but sometimes HDR will be just the ticket.
Not long ago people used graduated filters to control the brightness of the sky in their exposures. That worked pretty well...
HDR is like every other photographic technique (or artistic technique in general).
Sometimes it is just what is needed. Sometimes it as crap and destroys the whole work.
The problem is that the marketing of photographic gear promises every new feature is going to make you the next ansel adams or cartier-bresson. Everyone knows on some level this is not true, but we still want to believe the hype.
I don't do HDR myself, mostly because I never shoot unmoving things....Except my girlfriend's jewelry which I shoot for her website. In that case, I have got a nice enough little studio purpose built where my dynamic range is well under control with no software trickery. Ideally, every photog should probably use other techniques to get the shot, but sometimes HDR will be just the ticket.
Not long ago people used graduated filters to control the brightness of the sky in their exposures. That worked pretty well...
Indeed. My point is simply that I've already seen the sentiment that HDR could make things better but couldn't make them worse. So far in my experiments, I'd say it makes the photos worse much more often than it makes them better. Some images it certainly helps dramatically-- outdoor in bright direct sunlight. I'm sure taking a stain-glass window shot with the sun behind it or something like that. But it takes a couple seconds per shot and often makes things look flat, washed-out, or just plain spooky. I'm just warning people not to leave it on all the time and assume it will always help.
The HDR did what it was supposed to do. it extends the dynamic range of the picture. If you look at the bottom of the two pictures HDR opened up the shadows so you can see more detail in the parking lot.
The part you don't like is that it lowered the contrast in the clouds. The contrast makes the clouds look more dynamic. But that's more about aesthetics. There is no way HDR can calculate for what people would aesthetically prefer.
The good thing about HDR is that there is more information in the picture. So you could select the clouds in Photoshop and increase the contrast and it would look the same as the non-HDR picture.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Booga
Not sure about you, but I like the No HDR version way better. I'm sure HDR is useful in some cases, but I think a lot of people are going to leave it turned on all the time and get slow performance and worse photos.
The HDR did what it was supposed to do. it extends the dynamic range of the picture. If you look at the bottom of the two pictures HDR opened up the shadows so you can see more detail in the parking lot.
The part you don't like is that it lowered the contrast in the clouds. The contrast makes the clouds look more dynamic. But that's more about aesthetics. There is no way HDR can calculate for what people would aesthetically prefer.
The good thing about HDR is that there is more information in the picture. So you could select the clouds in Photoshop and increase the contrast and it would look the same as the non-HDR picture.
I understand that HDR did what it was supposed to do. But the information it added was down in the parking lot and there is actually LESS information up in the clouds in the HDR photo. I honestly can't tweak the HDR photo to look like the non-HDR one because the extra information in the clouds is lost (If you can take those two images and tweak the first to look like the second and prove me wrong, be my guest). Besides, if I wanted to use Photoshop on these things, I probably wouldn't be using an iPhone 4 to take them in the first place.
My point is simply that HDR may help you get that hard-to-catch shot of the outdoor sunny wedding or somesuch, just don't thoughtlessly leave it on and think it's improving all your photos or that you can even recover that information in post-processing.
Having already updated my phone to 4.1 via unofficial channels, I can tell you that the feature is outstanding. At this point, the point and shoot industry is having a hard time justifying its existence.
Only a person with no photography knowledge would say such a thing. There are many point and shoots out on the market that give users much more control than the iPhone camera with better optical hardware.
HDR may be useful but I don't know if anyone would use it all the time. As was pointed out in a previous posting, shadows sometimes make other objects more striking. In other cases Contrast enhances a photo. There are so many variables that HDR will just be another toy in the world of correction and effects.
HDR may be useful but I don't know if anyone would use it all the time. As was pointed out in a previous posting, shadows sometimes make other objects more striking. In other cases Contrast enhances a photo. There are so many variables that HDR will just be another toy in the world of correction and effects.
Apple kind of advertised HDR as a general tool to make your pictures better. Or I am getting the idea some here are under that impression. I also think the iPhone 4 camera is a decent one. HDR is just a tool. You have to know when to use it. I can take any basic digital and create good shots. It isn't the camera itself but the user and their knowledge (with help from post processing) that can turn photos into art.
The HDR won't work in this case. Too much exposure difference. The area with flash (normal exposure) and the background that flash couldn't cover could easily be more than 5 stops difference. In short, it's impossible in this case. That's why it's not enabled with flash.
Quote:
Originally Posted by polymnia
Google Slow Sync Flash. That is the technique that already exists to do what you request and it is better if you are handholding or shooting human subjects since there is only one exposre taken.
Let me clarify, my example of the beach at night scenario was done with two photos. The first with Slow Sync Flash (I know what that is) and the second with no flash and a slow shutter. This is a special function on my point-and-shoot that takes the photos one immediately after the other.
Then in Photoshop, I blended the two photos together with various masks and adjustment filters. The general idea being to combine the flashed subjects with the more detailed naturally lit background.
Whether this is HDR or not seems to be debatable in this forum. I thought that as long as you combine two or more images with varying exposures that it qualifies as HDR because the end-product has a _higher dynamic range_ than you would've had with any single photo.
I understand that HDR did what it was supposed to do. But the information it added was down in the parking lot and there is actually LESS information up in the clouds in the HDR photo.
Is the iPhone flattening the pictures to JPEG after taking an HDR? If so, that does sort of defeat a lot of the flexibility in using HDR. If it saves .hdr files, it should be storing more info.
Let me clarify, my example of the beach at night scenario was done with two photos. The first with Slow Sync Flash (I know what that is) and the second with no flash and a slow shutter. This is a special function on my point-and-shoot that takes the photos one immediately after the other.
Then in Photoshop, I blended the two photos together with various masks and adjustment filters. The general idea being to combine the flashed subjects with the more detailed naturally lit background.
Whether this is HDR or not seems to be debatable in this forum. I thought that as long as you combine two or more images with varying exposures that it qualifies as HDR because the end-product has a _higher dynamic range_ than you would've had with any single photo.
HDR or not, you can't put light where there is none. You won't see the waves in the background until we have far more sensitive image sensors. No amount or type of HDR processing can address that fact. Your beach at night scenario is inherently, quite simply, a poor photo situation. Next time pick a better shot.
Let me clarify, my example of the beach at night scenario was done with two photos. The first with Slow Sync Flash (I know what that is) and the second with no flash and a slow shutter. This is a special function on my point-and-shoot that takes the photos one immediately after the other..
For HDR to work with flash, like you said, it need a tripod or a very steady hand, or some sort of magic stabilizing algorithm. Without basic photography knowledge most, if not all, of the shots would end up blurry. That's why implement HDR with flash for mobile phone is not a good idea.
The situation you raised is the one most photographers would avoid. They would shoot at dusk but never at dark.
I have been using TrueHDR, the image matching is hit and miss. Sometimes nice, sometimes colours and resolution is poor. This Apple HDR, assuming it is available on the 3GS, will be awesome. F the jailbreak...
"Hit or miss? is an apt way of putting it, from both my tests and in the images page for the main article. Because of this I enabled the option to retain the original image. I noticed no additional time for this app to work so it?s a looks like a benefit without any downside.
Since it functions only in SW I would assume the 3GS with a Cortex-A8 would get it, the 3G is less certain as I have no idea of the processing and RAM required to perform this task, but based on my tests it seems fast enough that even the 3G could handle it (but this is Apple and who knows what they?ll do).
Not sure about you, but I like the No HDR version way better.
For that specific image sure, because sunsets are about bold colors and what you DON'T see as well as what you do. I'm going to guess that HDR will make more flattering shots of people.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Booga
Indeed. My point is simply that I've already seen the sentiment that HDR could make things better but couldn't make them worse.
Well it can't if you keep the non-HDR version. Most people will never know in advance when HDR can help, but they can look at two photos and say "I like that one better."
Quote:
Originally Posted by Marvin
Is the iPhone flattening the pictures to JPEG after taking an HDR? If so, that does sort of defeat a lot of the flexibility in using HDR. If it saves .hdr files, it should be storing more info.
Good question. If it does save as .hdr, then you'd have all sorts of valuable post-shoot options.
Quote:
Originally Posted by matrix07
The situation you raised is the one most photographers would avoid. They would shoot at dusk but never at dark.
Apple has every right to call what iOS 4.1 does HDR. It is like calling film "film" even when transferred to video. If you take 3 photos that are 8-bits each but with different exposures, then what you have is 24 bits of luminance info per image. The argument about it has to be 9-bit is ridiculous.
He's talking about "flash" photography, not night shot in general (or do you think the picture you linked shot with flash, huh?). Please avoid adding something irrelevant by reading the whole conversation.
And again, HDR in photography has nothing to do with color bit information.
Comments
Perfect example of TONE MAPPING, not HDR.
Tone Mapping IS HDR.
You are thinking of it from a computer science perspective: more bits = more dynamic range. This is true inside the computer.
Photography doesn't occur inside of a computer. A photographic capture device can only capture so many stops of light (analog dynamic range, ie: max light level before clipping & min light level the sensor will pickup). This is true with film and digital capture. It doesn't matter how many bits you throw at the issue, one exposure can only capture so many stops.
With multiple exposures, software can TONE MAP the hightlights & midtones from the darkest exposure to the hightlights of the HDR image, the Shadows & midtone from the brightest exposure are mapped into the shadows of the HDR image and in the medium exposure an extra-wide band of mid tone is compressed into the midtones of the HDR image. You can use even more exposures if you are a real masochist to potentially open up more dynamic range
The way a photographer thinks of HDR is in stops that can be captured and conveyed in a file or print in a file or on a print.
Black is Black whether the file is 8, 16 or 32 bits a channel. Same with white.
I'm not suggesting that high bit depth is a bad thing. I convert all my images to 16bit ProPhoto RGB from Lightroom when editing and only save down to an 8bit image in sRGB or AdobeRGB as a final step before delivery.
Of course, once you have made an HDR original you may very well want to edit it and there will still be deep shadow and bright highlight areas that would benefit dodging & burning. creating a high bit depth original HDR file will make these edits much higher quality.
Not sure about you, but I like the No HDR version way better. I'm sure HDR is useful in some cases, but I think a lot of people are going to leave it turned on all the time and get slow performance and worse photos.
HDR:
No HDR:
A sample taken tonight of the first high-level clouds of the approaching tropical storm in the opposite direction of the setting sun. No modification was done to the images, taken on an iPhone 4, uploaded with iPhoto, and exported with "Large" size and "High" JPEG quality.
Not sure about you, but I like the No HDR version way better. I'm sure HDR is useful in some cases, but I think a lot of people are going to leave it turned on all the time and get slow performance and worse photos.
HDR is like every other photographic technique (or artistic technique in general).
Sometimes it is just what is needed. Sometimes it as crap and destroys the whole work.
The problem is that the marketing of photographic gear promises every new feature is going to make you the next ansel adams or cartier-bresson. Everyone knows on some level this is not true, but we still want to believe the hype.
I don't do HDR myself, mostly because I never shoot unmoving things....Except my girlfriend's jewelry which I shoot for her website. In that case, I have got a nice enough little studio purpose built where my dynamic range is well under control with no software trickery. Ideally, every photog should probably use other techniques to get the shot, but sometimes HDR will be just the ticket.
Not long ago people used graduated filters to control the brightness of the sky in their exposures. That worked pretty well...
HDR is like every other photographic technique (or artistic technique in general).
Sometimes it is just what is needed. Sometimes it as crap and destroys the whole work.
The problem is that the marketing of photographic gear promises every new feature is going to make you the next ansel adams or cartier-bresson. Everyone knows on some level this is not true, but we still want to believe the hype.
I don't do HDR myself, mostly because I never shoot unmoving things....Except my girlfriend's jewelry which I shoot for her website. In that case, I have got a nice enough little studio purpose built where my dynamic range is well under control with no software trickery. Ideally, every photog should probably use other techniques to get the shot, but sometimes HDR will be just the ticket.
Not long ago people used graduated filters to control the brightness of the sky in their exposures. That worked pretty well...
Indeed. My point is simply that I've already seen the sentiment that HDR could make things better but couldn't make them worse. So far in my experiments, I'd say it makes the photos worse much more often than it makes them better. Some images it certainly helps dramatically-- outdoor in bright direct sunlight. I'm sure taking a stain-glass window shot with the sun behind it or something like that. But it takes a couple seconds per shot and often makes things look flat, washed-out, or just plain spooky. I'm just warning people not to leave it on all the time and assume it will always help.
The part you don't like is that it lowered the contrast in the clouds. The contrast makes the clouds look more dynamic. But that's more about aesthetics. There is no way HDR can calculate for what people would aesthetically prefer.
The good thing about HDR is that there is more information in the picture. So you could select the clouds in Photoshop and increase the contrast and it would look the same as the non-HDR picture.
Not sure about you, but I like the No HDR version way better. I'm sure HDR is useful in some cases, but I think a lot of people are going to leave it turned on all the time and get slow performance and worse photos.
Not long ago people used graduated filters to control the brightness of the sky in their exposures. That worked pretty well...
The HDR did what it was supposed to do. it extends the dynamic range of the picture. If you look at the bottom of the two pictures HDR opened up the shadows so you can see more detail in the parking lot.
The part you don't like is that it lowered the contrast in the clouds. The contrast makes the clouds look more dynamic. But that's more about aesthetics. There is no way HDR can calculate for what people would aesthetically prefer.
The good thing about HDR is that there is more information in the picture. So you could select the clouds in Photoshop and increase the contrast and it would look the same as the non-HDR picture.
I understand that HDR did what it was supposed to do. But the information it added was down in the parking lot and there is actually LESS information up in the clouds in the HDR photo. I honestly can't tweak the HDR photo to look like the non-HDR one because the extra information in the clouds is lost (If you can take those two images and tweak the first to look like the second and prove me wrong, be my guest). Besides, if I wanted to use Photoshop on these things, I probably wouldn't be using an iPhone 4 to take them in the first place.
My point is simply that HDR may help you get that hard-to-catch shot of the outdoor sunny wedding or somesuch, just don't thoughtlessly leave it on and think it's improving all your photos or that you can even recover that information in post-processing.
Having already updated my phone to 4.1 via unofficial channels, I can tell you that the feature is outstanding. At this point, the point and shoot industry is having a hard time justifying its existence.
Only a person with no photography knowledge would say such a thing. There are many point and shoots out on the market that give users much more control than the iPhone camera with better optical hardware.
HDR may be useful but I don't know if anyone would use it all the time. As was pointed out in a previous posting, shadows sometimes make other objects more striking. In other cases Contrast enhances a photo. There are so many variables that HDR will just be another toy in the world of correction and effects.
Apple kind of advertised HDR as a general tool to make your pictures better. Or I am getting the idea some here are under that impression. I also think the iPhone 4 camera is a decent one. HDR is just a tool. You have to know when to use it. I can take any basic digital and create good shots. It isn't the camera itself but the user and their knowledge (with help from post processing) that can turn photos into art.
The HDR won't work in this case. Too much exposure difference. The area with flash (normal exposure) and the background that flash couldn't cover could easily be more than 5 stops difference. In short, it's impossible in this case. That's why it's not enabled with flash.
Google Slow Sync Flash. That is the technique that already exists to do what you request and it is better if you are handholding or shooting human subjects since there is only one exposre taken.
Let me clarify, my example of the beach at night scenario was done with two photos. The first with Slow Sync Flash (I know what that is) and the second with no flash and a slow shutter. This is a special function on my point-and-shoot that takes the photos one immediately after the other.
Then in Photoshop, I blended the two photos together with various masks and adjustment filters. The general idea being to combine the flashed subjects with the more detailed naturally lit background.
Whether this is HDR or not seems to be debatable in this forum. I thought that as long as you combine two or more images with varying exposures that it qualifies as HDR because the end-product has a _higher dynamic range_ than you would've had with any single photo.
I understand that HDR did what it was supposed to do. But the information it added was down in the parking lot and there is actually LESS information up in the clouds in the HDR photo.
Is the iPhone flattening the pictures to JPEG after taking an HDR? If so, that does sort of defeat a lot of the flexibility in using HDR. If it saves .hdr files, it should be storing more info.
Let me clarify, my example of the beach at night scenario was done with two photos. The first with Slow Sync Flash (I know what that is) and the second with no flash and a slow shutter. This is a special function on my point-and-shoot that takes the photos one immediately after the other.
Then in Photoshop, I blended the two photos together with various masks and adjustment filters. The general idea being to combine the flashed subjects with the more detailed naturally lit background.
Whether this is HDR or not seems to be debatable in this forum. I thought that as long as you combine two or more images with varying exposures that it qualifies as HDR because the end-product has a _higher dynamic range_ than you would've had with any single photo.
HDR or not, you can't put light where there is none. You won't see the waves in the background until we have far more sensitive image sensors. No amount or type of HDR processing can address that fact. Your beach at night scenario is inherently, quite simply, a poor photo situation. Next time pick a better shot.
Let me clarify, my example of the beach at night scenario was done with two photos. The first with Slow Sync Flash (I know what that is) and the second with no flash and a slow shutter. This is a special function on my point-and-shoot that takes the photos one immediately after the other..
For HDR to work with flash, like you said, it need a tripod or a very steady hand, or some sort of magic stabilizing algorithm. Without basic photography knowledge most, if not all, of the shots would end up blurry. That's why implement HDR with flash for mobile phone is not a good idea.
The situation you raised is the one most photographers would avoid. They would shoot at dusk but never at dark.
I have been using TrueHDR, the image matching is hit and miss. Sometimes nice, sometimes colours and resolution is poor. This Apple HDR, assuming it is available on the 3GS, will be awesome. F the jailbreak...
"Hit or miss? is an apt way of putting it, from both my tests and in the images page for the main article. Because of this I enabled the option to retain the original image. I noticed no additional time for this app to work so it?s a looks like a benefit without any downside.
Since it functions only in SW I would assume the 3GS with a Cortex-A8 would get it, the 3G is less certain as I have no idea of the processing and RAM required to perform this task, but based on my tests it seems fast enough that even the 3G could handle it (but this is Apple and who knows what they?ll do).
Not sure about you, but I like the No HDR version way better.
For that specific image sure, because sunsets are about bold colors and what you DON'T see as well as what you do. I'm going to guess that HDR will make more flattering shots of people.
Indeed. My point is simply that I've already seen the sentiment that HDR could make things better but couldn't make them worse.
Well it can't if you keep the non-HDR version. Most people will never know in advance when HDR can help, but they can look at two photos and say "I like that one better."
Is the iPhone flattening the pictures to JPEG after taking an HDR? If so, that does sort of defeat a lot of the flexibility in using HDR. If it saves .hdr files, it should be storing more info.
Good question. If it does save as .hdr, then you'd have all sorts of valuable post-shoot options.
The situation you raised is the one most photographers would avoid. They would shoot at dusk but never at dark.
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fi..._night_HDR.jpg
===========
Apple has every right to call what iOS 4.1 does HDR. It is like calling film "film" even when transferred to video. If you take 3 photos that are 8-bits each but with different exposures, then what you have is 24 bits of luminance info per image. The argument about it has to be 9-bit is ridiculous.
In any event cell cameras are closer than they every have been to being good enough.
Now if only Apple had put a "good enough" camera in the new touch.
And yesterday's speculations seem spot-on: Unless you have VERY bright light, it sucks.
I ain't losing my jailbreak over that.
Bingo.
I said it yesterday. I see no reason to upgrade. The new features are just fluff.
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fi..._night_HDR.jpg
He's talking about "flash" photography, not night shot in general (or do you think the picture you linked shot with flash, huh?). Please avoid adding something irrelevant by reading the whole conversation.
And again, HDR in photography has nothing to do with color bit information.