CLASSIC AND HDR NATURE PHOTOGRAPHY TUTORIAL



Hi, everyone! Many people aked me to write a hdr nature photography tutorial, so here it is.
First of all I would like to remind (if someone already knows) some classic skills you have to know to get a good result in future hdr photography. For this you’ll need a dslr-camera, wide (exxtra-wide are even better, but not a necessity) lens and a lot of patience! So here we go - tips, that everybody should know:

First, always shoot in RAW-format, сuz it contains minimally processed data from the image sensor of a digital camera and this digital negative has a wider dynamic range or color gamut than the eventual final image format.

To get enough detail in nature/landscape photography you should work with big DOF (depth-of-field), the more DOF is - the more distance will be in focus. So increasing the f-number (reducing the aperture diameter) increases the DOF; however, it also reduces the amount of light transmitted, that’s why you’ll need a tripod cuz you’ll work with several seconds of exposure time. Usually I work with F11-F16-F22, that differs on situation and aims.
Depth Of Field Examples 1

Good tripod is a good freind, so buy a good one that won’t be shaking when your hand is touching/leaving the cam cuz then it will be really difficult to get an image with a good sharpness.

So that’s why if you’re using a tripod shoot with iso100 (maximum iso200) to get more quality of your creations.

Use light filters (this is not really important, but still usefull even if you’re working with hdri) to get a wider dynamic range and not to loose lots of information in lights and shadows. Poliarizer and gradient ones are a good choice.
Filter Usage Examples 2


Now the time is for HDRI tips. High dynamic range imaging (HDRI) is a set of techniques that allows a greater dynamic range of exposures (the range of values between light and dark areas) than normal digital imaging techniques. The intention of HDRI is to accurately represent the wide range of intensity levels found in real scenes ranging from direct sunlight to shadows.

I will write about my own vision of taking hdr photos to get a quantative result. As you understand hdr requires taking several photos with different exposure values to get much detail in lights and shadows, usually it is written that it’s enough to use an AEB-option of your cam and to shoot 3 files in serie with -2, 0 and +2 exposure values. But I recommend to:

Using a tripod shoot 5(better 9-11) files for static scenery in RAW-format with different exposures with all classic tips I’ve mentioned higher.

The middle exposure value (usually said “0” ) must be a little darker than 0, better -0,5 or -1 (differs on situation) to get much more details in sky (lights).

Then convert each RAW in 16bitt TIFF-file to get as much quality, dynamic-range and colours as possible.

To create an HDRI you’ll need software like Photomatix Pro (can be found here - www.hdrsoft.com). Open all your converted TIFF-files in Photomatix and link HDR – Generate.

After you get HDR file you need to tonemap it, means make visible on a monitor (cuz the monitor is unable to show you a 48bit image) Go HDR – Tone mapping. There you should play with pecific settings to find out program possibilities and your style in post-processing of hdri. It’s a part of creating art too.

After save file in 16bit of 8bit file format and open it in ps for the last stage of post-processing. Usually I almost do not edit files in ps, cuz I’m to lazy for this after doing all this stuff that hdr photography requires...

So here’s my little secrets of hdr photography... the result you may find out in my works:






Hope it was usefull!

Sinserly Yours, *soulofautumn87