Use the Coupon Code “HDRpromo15″ for 15% off any Topaz product, including Topaz Clarity

Lately I’ve been doing a lot of photography on golf courses for my new site.

Not gonna lie, it’s a lot of work. In order to do it right, I’m taking over 300 photos on the course, and every review I do is close to two dozen photos or more.

On top of that, I’m often working with midday sun or really cool cloud features that require I use HDR in order to get the shots to come out the way I want.

What does this mean? Time. Lots of time.

Between the 4 hours I spend on the course, and the roughly 6 hours I spend editing photos and writing articles, I’m spending a lot of time working.

That being said, I’ve been thinking for awhile about how nice it would be if there was a plugin that would keep me from having to do full on HDR brackets for every shot, and would still help me bring out the same detail and deal with the poor lighting.

Enter Topaz Clarity.

I’ve been a fan of Topaz for awhile, specifically their fantastic Adjust plugin, so I was excited when I got a beta release version of their new Clarity plugin.

I had high hopes, but I wasn’t fully confident it would be able to replace my needs for HDR with the type of work I’ve been doing lately.

However after a few days with it, and a bunch of sample photos, I’ve gotta say, I’m impressed.

First Impressions

Upon loading an image in photoshop, it’s easy, as usual to pull up the Clarity screen from the plugins menu. If you’ve used similar plugins in the past, you’ll be right at home with the layout.

Presets on the left, a big image screen in the center, and fine adjustments over on the right.

I actually found the presets to me more useful for this software than many of the Nik Software presets I’ve used in the pasts.  They were less gimicky, and seemed to provide more real world value for what I was trying to accomplish.

Now if you look at the original of this photo, it’s relatively flat.  The clouds are there, and I’d been using HDR to pump them up and get a little more structure out of the grass, which is what really makes a golf course or any lawn photo seem more realistic.

All I had to do was select the color and contrast preset, and then adjust the micro contrast tool, and all of a sudden I had a photo that was much more exciting than the initial one I’d been working with – and more importantly, it took a fraction of the time that an HDR image would have taken me.

This is pretty exciting, because when you have to pump out a bunch of these, it can get pretty time consuming.

Here was the original of that photo above:

Here are a couple more before and after shots that really show how Topaz Clarity has made my life easier:

As you can tell, there are some pretty dramatic results. If you’re going to be doing a lot of landscape shots, and want to minimize the time you spend in post, this could be an excellent solution.  I think it will definitely be a part of my regular workflow for certain tasks from here on out.

Minor Annoyances

Topaz Clarity is a great piece of software, however it isn’t without some minor annoyances.

The first? Every time I load it up, it has to load each preset individually.  So the progress bar is blazing through 20-30 presets every time I fire it up, which can take a good 10 seconds or so.

Not a huge deal, but noticeable enough that I thought it was worth mentioning.

I’ve also found it slightly difficult to get exactly the results I want in the plugin. I usually have to end up tweaking either exposure, vibrance, or saturation in Photoshop after making my tweaks in Clarity.

This isn’t a big deal, because it’s not a standalone product. You’re using it in Photoshop already, so most people will expect to have make a few tweaks from there.

Recommended? 

I’ve found Topaz Clarity to be one of the best non-HDR, HDR plugins out there – if that makes sense.

I never experienced any of the halo-ing effects often seen in plugins like this, and it was really easy to add a boost of clarity (pun slightly intended) in many of the photos I’ve been practicing with.

I’ll report back as I’ve had more time to use the software, but so far I’m really liking where it’s going, and I’m excited to try it on a broad swath of photos.

Use the Coupon Code “HDRpromo15″ for 15% off any Topaz product, including Topaz Clarity

Grab your copy of Topaz Black & White Effects 2 or Silver Efex Pro 2

My mom recently dumped a large box of black and white photos and negatives in my lap and suggested that I was now the official family archivist.

I’m now in charge of making sure that the family history (at least the generations before me) were photographically documented in digital form and could be shared and treasured within the family for generations to come. In short, a project that shouldn’t take me more than 20 or 30 years to complete.

There were hundreds if not thousands of images in all shapes, sizes and formats. Some were beautiful, pristine prints and some looked like they’d been run through the washing machine. Besides prints there were also hundreds of negatives, some of which have probably been obsolete since the 1920’s.

But there were also some incredible historical images, many dating back to near the turn of the 20^th century that were certainly worth some time and effort to preserve. And since mom says it’s my job, well then, I guess it’s my job.

Wanting to concentrate more on the creative part of the process rather than the organization (I always have dessert first!), I decided to just jump in and try to identify the best program out there to make every image look as good as possible.

Having just reviewed Silver EFEX Pro 2 and being pretty impressed with it, I decided to do a side by side with Topaz B&W Effects 2. These are arguably the two top B & W programs out there and wanted to decide which would be best to spend my time with.

Working with B&W Originals

A couple things to keep in mind when you’re starting with black and white originals. Scan them in color even though they’re black and white.

Most of the popular b&w plug-ins, require the images to be done in RGB color. If you scan them as black and white grey scale the software won’t recognize them. If you already have grayscale scans and are using Photoshop as your front end you can cheat and convert them on the fly:

1. Going to the Photoshop IMAGE pull down menu
2. Go to MODE
3. Select RGB Color

Keep in mind that certain tools will have limited to no effect if you’re starting with B&W images. For instance, color filters and color sensitivity draw information from the original color channels so will have minimal or no effect if you’re starting with B&W. When working with color originals (as I suppose most of you will be) there are various tools each plug-in uses that sample the original color information to make subtle tonal changes to the B&W processed image.

Layout and Similarities

In terms of the programs themselves, the basic work space is almost identical in both programs. Pre-sets to the left, Image preview center and adjustment tools to the right. Both have a wide range of presets although Topaz B&W Effects has a significantly larger collection than Silver Efex Pro 2. You can decide for yourself if that’s a good thing or just overkill.

Even though they’re labeled differently both have a similar toolset for most functions. You get all the standards for brightness, contrast, filters, film grain, highlight and shadow control, toning, vignettes, borders etc.

Each has their own unique processing algorithms that in a more detailed review may show technical strengths or weaknesses but we’re going to stay more “overview-ish” for now.

Silver EFEX Pro 2 Workspace

Topaz B&W 2 Workspace

Examples

Back to my box of photos. I wanted to find an example of a shot that was fairly pristine but needed a little tweaking and see how each program handled it with an absolute minimum of fine tuning. Here’s my grandmother on her wedding day in raw scan form, already looking pretty good but I wanted a bit more contrast and a bit less sepia:

Here’s the same shot in Silver Efex Pro 2:

And in Topaz BW Effects 2:

Overall I’d have to give a slight edge to Silver Efex for hitting on my personal taste in the shortest amount of time.

A key thing to keep in mind with any of these programs is that you can spend hours creating hundreds of variations. More often than not it’s best to keep it simple. Figure out which works best for your taste and workflow and which gets you there the fastest and go with that.

Things I Like About Topaz B&W Effects 2

There were quite a few features in Topaz that I really liked:

• GRID Preset Mode – One pre-set view mode is called GRID which gives you all the pre-sets side by side. Easier to compare different looks at a glance.
•  Significantly more pre-sets for Color Toning ranges.
• Quick Toolset – In the upper right hand corner there are a set of Quick Tools for basic functions like brightness, contrast, burn, dodge, color filters undo, re-do, etc. This can be handy if you start with a pre-set that gets you most of the way there and only needs minor touch up. Sometimes getting into more or deeper menus can just get in the way of simple work
• Local Adjustments – This is a set of tools that allows you to use brushes to apply zone specific changes. Besides the degree of control I felt like I had, there were functions for burn and dodge, detail, smoothing, opacity, and hardness. There is also a variable edge aware tool that I thought worked really well for spot changes when you didn’t want to overlap effects into other parts of your shot. You can also selectively add color back in from your original shot.
• Undo – Topaz allows you to undo or reset individual adjustments without having to open the history tab.

Things I Like About Silver EFEX Pro 2

Silver EFEX Pro 2 also had plenty to like:

• Modifying your work – Although it can be a little more trouble, you can go back through the history menu and re-start at any point along the way. If you apply 12 different effects that you aren’t happy with, just find that start point, highlight it and start over from there. Lots of flexibility with this approach.
• Options for comparing with original – There is a split screen preview mode that allows you to slide back and forth between your original image and your conversion. You can also single click to switch between the two.
• Original Color Frame – You can view the original color frame within Silver Efex Pro 2 by going to HISTORY, Highlight ORIGINAL then click COMPARE.

Brushes vs. Control Points

Here’s one area where the two programs take a completely different approach. When adjusting areas within a frame, Topaz BW Effects uses a more traditional brush tool while Silver Efex Pro uses what they call “Control Points”.

In Silver Efex, each control point has a variable size area which has sliders for size, brightness, contrast, “structure”, amplify whites, amplify blacks, fine structure and selective colorization. You can add as many control points as you want, copy them, group them together, and move them either individually or as a group.

Each control point also seems to be somewhat edge aware, although there is no control for this short of selecting a smaller zone. On the upside, you can create a control zone for large areas at one time and most of the major tools are right there in front of you. On the downside it may take several control points (or more) to work with a specific issue which can get a little tedious. That said, once you get the hang of it you can add and change points pretty quickly.

In Topaz I found the brush tool to be a little more intuitive for my taste and also had “darkroom” tools like burn and dodge which seem to be completely missing in Silver. In general, I just felt more in control of the process and particularly liked the variable edge aware control.

Adaptive Exposure vs. Structure and Faking HDR

Since this is a website primarily for HDR photography I wanted to do a little experiment in creating HDR-like effects without going through the whole HDR process.

Each program has its own version of providing localized detail and contrast for creating broader tonal ranges that could be used for, among other things, creating “faux HDR”.

The best way to create a black and white HDR (High Dynamic Range) image is to use proper HDR software like Photomatix then do your conversions to B&W. I was curious how good a job each did with their own tools to create “HDR-like” images; Topaz B&W Effects using it’s adaptive Exposure tool and Silver Efex Pro 2 using it’s Structure tool. The goal was to get that apparent dynamic range and create a feeling of more detail starting with a single color image. I also wanted to do it without spending hours and using primarily the controls I’ve just mentioned. Here are the results:

Topaz B&W Effects 2″HDR”

Silver Efex Pro 2 “HDR”

I actually thought I got a much quicker and more natural effect from Silver Efex using only the  Structure slider and a slight adjustment to the mid-tones. Topaz certainly had more control sliders and it may be that if I spent more time I could have gotten a better result but with Silver Efex Pro I got 95% of the way there in about 10 seconds.

Summary

Both Topaz Black and White 2 and Silver EFEX Pro 2 are excellent tools, either of which should satisfy most photographers for both beginning and advanced black and white processing needs.

I tended to think that Topaz had a better toolset for my way of working and if I had to pick just one, I’d probably go that direction.

That being said, if you’re looking strictly for a black and white processing program and want to save a few bucks, Topaz is in the $70 range while Silver EFEX Pro is $150. Of course Silver EFEX Pro comes in a package with 5 other great photo programs for the price. If you’ve got a few more dollars to spend, the Nik package is probably the current “deal of the century” for photo processing software.

Grab your copy of Topaz Black & White Effects 2 or Silver Efex Pro 2

Use the promo code “HDRpromo15″ for 15% off Silver Efex Pro and the Rest of the Nik Collection

There are probably hundreds of different programs on the market that will create a black and white image from a color one. After all, how hard can it be to simply strip the color out of a picture?

But if you’re as big a fan of black and white photography as I am, you know that it’s the subtleties and nuances that take a shot from simply being monochrome to being something worth hanging on your wall.

After using a variety of programs to process my black and white work, and in some cases, more than one on a single image, I think I may have found a great one-stop-shop alternative in Silver Efex Pro 2 from Nik software.

In this Silver Efex Pro 2 review we’re going to look at all of the different features and how they work together to create one of the best photography plugins on the market today.

I wanted to get a new image to put Silver Efex through its paces and (living in the Portland, Oregon area) decided run out to Multnomah Falls in the Columbia River Gorge, on a rare sunny March day in Oregon.

On Easter Sunday.

During spring break.

Probably not very well thought out since everyone in a 3 state radius had the same idea, as Multnomah is the tallest waterfall in Oregon and the largest natural tourist attraction in the state.

So now I have 2 challenges:

1. Get a clean shot with a thousand tourists standing in my way
2. Try to bring something new to a shot that has been done a million times.

I fought my way to the front of the lower viewing area and started to grab a few frames. I decided I wanted to go for more of a blur effect with the water so dialed back to 1/5 of a second exposure and realized that I’d forgotten my tripod. Not that there was much room to set it up anyway but at this point I decided to take my chances, knock out a few frames hand held and call it a day. Not one of my stronger photo outings, and I was pretty sure the day was a bust.

Once I got home and downloaded the few frames I took, I realized that there were a couple that actually weren’t too bad. Full disclosure here, I took the one I liked best and used Photoshop to “remove” a few stray people from the upper bridge, thus giving me a much cleaner starting point. It actually now looks like I was there on a random spring day all by myself. Go figure.

Here’s the starting image:

Multnomah Falls Outside of Portland, Oregon

So with the backstory in place, Let’s go into Silver EFEX Pro and see what we’ve got…

The Silver Efex Pro 2 Interface

Silver Efex Pro (SEP) works as a plug-in to a variety of imaging programs such as Photoshop or Lightroom. I used Photoshop in this case since I had a little “pre-editing” to do anyway (pesky tourists). Load your original image and use the pull down menu in the edit section to launch SEP. A separate window opens on top that is the primary user interface.

For the most part I found the interface pretty well designed and intuitive. Presets on the left, work space in the middle and fine adjustments on the right.

There are 3 different ways to view “before and after” effects as you work: side by side, split screen and toggle (switch back and forth between processed and unprocessed with a mouse click). These all work well and each has value depending on how you like to work. Here’s what the image looked like as it was brought into SEP with the neutral preset:

Opening Screen Neutral Pre-Set

Pre-Sets

There are a variety of pre-sets you can use, some of which (but not all) are very good right out of the box.

There’s a good chance you can find one that will get you in the right ballpark even if you decide to fine tune from there (which is how I suspect most people will work anyway). You can also create and save your own pre-sets which can be a major time saver once you figure out how to create images to your personal taste.  I was actually pretty pleased with this right away but wanted to bring out some of the detail and improve the contrast.

The default pre-set is neutral which brings the image in with all the fine adjustments nulled.

Global Adjustments

There are two basic adjustment “levels” to understand when approaching programs within the Nik software series.

First are Global adjustments. Global adjustments are pretty much what they sound like: any adjustments that you make will be applied over the entire image. This includes basics like brightness, contrast and structure (what I’d refer to as detail).

Within these controls there are several levels of fine adjustment including highlights, mid-tones, shadows and dynamic brightness, amplify whites, amplify blacks and soft contrast. In most cases global adjustments are the starting point to get your image in good basic shape for fine tuning.

Each category of adjustments can be re-set by clicking the undo button in the upper right corner of each  control box. Unfortunately there are no resets for individual fine controls such as highlights or shadows. You have to reset the entire global range.

Control Points

Fine tuning is done using Control Points. This is where Silver Efex Pro really stands out.

Control points allow you to make a wide range of adjustments to specific areas within the frame. You select the “add control point” button, click your mouse on the area you want to adjust and away you go. By adjusting the size of the control point you decide how large an area you want to manipulate.

Control Points

Each control point has its own set of drop down sliders to adjust brightness, contrast, structure, etc. as well as selective colorization. Selective colorization will restore the original image color to whatever area you’ve dropped the control point(s) onto. Here’s a sample:

Selective Colorization Using Silver EFEX Pro

Control points can be dragged from one area to another to fine tune which part of the frame you want to adjust. There is also the ability to copy control points if you want to use the same settings on another part of the frame. Additionally, they can be ganged together to operate as a group.

Once you’ve set the right basic size of the control area, I found that they seem to be somewhat “intelligent” and can recognize transitions from one “object” to another within that area.

If you want to adjust the brightness of someone’s face in a shot, it seems to “know” that you want to adjust just that area. That being said, it isn’t perfect and to get fine control in many cases will require you to set multiple control points to get it right. Once you catch on to the concept this tends to be pretty quick and easy.

For this particular shot I kind of liked the moodiness of the relatively low contrast look. I used a “Full Dynamic” pre-set to start then used control points to selectively bring out a bit more detail and definition in some of the darker areas. Here’s the finished look:

Multnomah Falls Finished Shot

Unique Modes Not Seen in Some Other Plugins

There are a variety of pretty cool modes in here that you don’t necessarily see in other pieces of software.

For traditionalist there are color filters available in red, orange, yellow, green and blue that simulate the effect of a hard lens filter using film.

Each is customizable within a broad range of hue and strength. These can be handy to provide broad contrast changes, particularly if you understand how each color effects the image (film school 101 type stuff that probably doesn’t get much discussion these days). One minor gripe; once you click on a “filter” it activates without highlighting so there doesn’t seem to be a way at a glance to see which filter is in play.

Keeping with the old school side of things, are the film stock attributes that simulate some of the most popular film types from Kodak, Fuji and Ilford. By dragging the mouse pointer over the list of stock you can see the changes in real time. Within film types you can also customize the type of grain, the hardness or softness of the grain and relative sensitivity to different “color” channels.

There are a full range of Finishing tools primarily for color wash and border effects. Although a lot of these aren’t to my personal taste they do provide a comprehensive library of sepia variations, vintage effects, vignetting and a lots of border options. If you’re into “old-timey” photo effects, or you’re part of the Instagram crowd, this will keep you busy for hours.

Sepia and Edge Effects

Loupe and Histogram

For close up viewing there is a loupe window for working on small areas of the image that you can adjust by dragging the mouse pointer over the area you want to zoom in on. It also includes a handy  function to stay locked on to a specific area while you make other adjustments.

One thing I missed on the image size functions was the ability to create variable zoom percentages of the primary image and then be able to drag the image around to the area I wanted to work on. This is just how I like to work and probably won’t be a big deal to most users.

There are also options for dynamic curve manipulation and histograms if you like to work that way. I’ve never gotten comfortable with the concept myself but I know a lot of others do.

Cab in Times Square – edited with Silver Efex Pr o2

Overall Impressions

For me, this is the only black and white processing software I’ll ever need.

Once I got used to using control points and a couple other features unique to Nik software, I loved the simplicity and flexibility of the design. If I’m in a hurry I can create a few pre-sets that are to my taste, import a shot, press a button and I’m done. If I’ve got an image that deserves a little more time and energy, Silver Efex Pro provides all the tools I’d ever need fine tune it in a virtually unlimited number of ways.

For more on how to use Silver Efex Pro for check out “How to Shoot Black and White HDR Photos”

Use the promo code “HDRpromo15″ for 15% off Silver Efex Pro and the Rest of the Nik Collection

If you’ve been reading this site for awhile, you know that I’m a huge fan of Nik Software’s products.

Well recently it was announced that Google had bought Nik, and I didn’t understand the implications of that until yesterday when Google announced their new pricing structure for what their calling The Nik Collection by Google.

What’s the deal?

All six programs in the collection for the ridiculously low price of $149.  Combined these used to be $499 and were well worth the cost of admission.

Now for the heavily reduced price you’re getting:

• HDR Efex Pro 2 – One of the best HDR solutions on the market
• Silver Efex Pro 2 – The very best black and white editing program on the market
• Color Efex Pro 4 – Pro grade color filters
• Dfine 2 – My go to noise reduction tool
• Viveza 2 – Great for selective photo editing.  Want to brighten up that mountain in the background of your photo? You’ll love this tool
• Sharpener Pro 3 – Pro grade image sharpening for printing

Get the Full Details on Each Here

These used to each be $99-199 – now you get them all.  Quite simply I’m blown away.

If you invest in one suite of plugins for Photoshop, Lightroom or Aperture, make sure these are it.

I’ll be doing individual write ups on each of these soon, but in the meantime check out:

• HDR Efex Pro 2 Review
• Color Efex Pro 4 Review
• How to Create a Black and White HDR Photo (Tutorial for Silver Efex Pro)

Use Coupon Code HDRpromo15 to Get 15% Off Nik Collection

As if this wasn’t already a good enough deal, you can use our promo code hdrpromo15 for an additional 15% off.  This means that you’re saving about 75% off what you would have paid for this collection 3 days ago. I still can’t quite believe it.

When you head to the order page here’s what you need to do to get the discount:

Want to Know Exactly What You Can Do With These Plugins?

Here are some samples:

HDR Efex Pro and Viveza

HDR Efex Pro and Silver Efex Pro

Pick up the Nik Collection and Get 15% Off Using Code “HDRpromo15″

In late 2009 I bought my first DSLR, a Nikon D5000, which has served me really well. I’ve gone back and forth between shooting with that and my dad’s D90, and I’m finally at a point where my skills have justified the need for a more flexible camera.

I’ve almost pulled the trigger on a D7000 numerous times in the last year, so when I saw that the new D7100 was on the horizon, I was pretty much sold.

I picked up my camera this morning, and spent the afternoon out in Portland, Oregon putting it through it’s paces and having some fun.  This is simply an overview first impression post of my experience with the camera thus far.

I’m also not going to go into all of the specific specs much because lets face it, all it takes is 5 seconds of Googling and you can have that information.

In the next week I’ll be posting a separate post on both it’s video capabilities, an HDR specific post, as well as another more in depth look at it once I’ve had some time to shoot more.

With that said, let’s jump into this Nikon D7100 review, and see if it has lived up to its reputation so far.

Opening it Up

The moment I took this camera out of the box I knew I was in for something special.

As someone who is upgrading from a 5000 series camera there’s a lot to like and be excited for with this new body.  The first thing I noticed is how much sturdier it feels.  It has the same weather proofing as the D800 and a magnesium alloy body, which compared to my mostly plastic D5000, simply feels more professional.

Along with that it’s hard not to notice how much has changed on the camera. For being a relatively similar design, you can do so much more without having to dig through menu after menu.  The programmable function button along with the dedicated bracketing button (a must for HDR) was enough to turn me into a giddy child again.

I was kind of surprised to see no plastic screen protector ala the D90 and D7000, but I’ve gotta say, the screen is beautiful - much higher resolution than my old 5000, and even higher than the still good looking D7000 screen.

That being said, it only took about 5 minutes of shooting in direct sunlight to really realize how much I was struggling to see it in daylight.  A few menus later and I got the brightness ratcheted up to 5 and the oled screen was crystal clear no matter how bright the sun was.

First Impression: Shooting

Just a couple snaps in I began to realize I’m in different territory.  While this still isn’t necessarily a “professional” camera, the increase in frame rate and shutter quality was extremely noticeable.  The shutter button feels much more sensitive, and if you’re not careful it was very easy to bang out 3 shots in a row on burst mode.

While those with the D7000 may not notice a huge advantage between the 39 point and new 51 point autofocus system – coming from my 11 point system on my old camera was night and day.

Getting focus right was always a big challenge for me, and within a couple hours of shooting with this, I was amazed at just how much better it was.  I could pick any point I wanted and it would focus quickly and accurately – something that used to always be very hit and miss.

I could pick any rail I wanted and it would lock on immediately

This ended up being a little bit of an impulse buy today, and I blew off some other engagements to be able to go and take some photos.  So that said, everything was shot with a 35mm f/1.8 – in the next few posts I’ll try out some other lenses, but I must say this Nikkor lens felt like a perfect match to the D7100.  The bokeh was spot on, and once I began to understand exactly how the autofocus modes worked, I became even more happy with my purchase.

Here are a couple more I took walking around my neighborhood. Keep in mind these are all completely unedited and straight out of the camera:

Notable Features

Considering I’ve only spent a couple hours hands on with the camera so far, I really can’t go into too much detail on the feature set of the camera.  All I can say though is, wow.  As far as I can tell it pretty much has every feature that you could want on a camera.  Custom settings at the touch of a button? Yep. Bracketing and HDR? You got it. Intervelometer? Mmmhmmm.

The list goes on. Sure many things like selective color aren’t going to be that interesting to the die hard (especially if you have Silver Efex Pro), but I’ll admit sometimes it’s nice to have options and to be able to have fun with your camera from time to time.

As far as the dedicated HDR mode goes, I had very low expectations.  I still haven’t done much aside from one quick test, and I’ve gotta say, for the first time ever – it actually seemed to work.  The HDR modes on my Iphone and Canon S110 are a complete joke, so why should this be any different, right?

Well I’ll let you be the judge.  The first image was shot without HDR and the second was with the built in single HDR shot turned on:

HDR Mode Off

Now without changing any of the other camera settings aside from turning on HDR…

HDR Mode On…

Not bad right??

Generally speaking the colors on the camera seem very true.  And have I mentioned the autofocus? Yeah, I’m still that impressed.

A Quick Note on Nikon D7100 for HDR

As I mentioned I’m going to do a full write up about the HDR capabilities of this camera, but to put it bluntly, I believe this is the best DX format camera for HDR Nikon has ever put out.

Why? Well for a lot of reasons, but one of the biggest is that you can now automatically bracket up to 5 images, instead of the standard 3.  And if you are shooting 3 brackets you can go as wide as +/-3 stops now, instead of just two.

For someone who primarily just shoots HDR, this is HUGE. It makes a big difference in day to day shooting, and will make the results that much better.

I can’t wait to actually get to work shooting some more HDR photos.

In the meantime, I did take one very quick shot this evening. I was waiting for a friend to pick me up for dinner, and unfortunately he showed up right when I was getting set.  So I snapped the shots with no tripod, and hardly taking time to setup the shot.  Gotta say, I was pretty amazed at how well it turned out.  There are some ghosting issues and such to deal with, but if nothing else this just leaves me excited about just what this bad boy is going to be able to do.

Edited very quickly with HDR Efex Pro 2

Have you shot with a D7100 yet? Thinking about buying one? Let us know your thoughts in the comments!

Grab the new Nikon D7100 from BH Photo and get 2% back in rewards!

My home base is in Portland, Oregon but I spend a good 3-4 months out of the year in various other places across the globe.

Because of this, I’ve had the chance to shoot a lot of HDR photos in a ton of cool places.

While I’m far from the world’s best photographer, I do get lucky every once in awhile.  These are some of my favorite HDR photographs from around the world.

All of these were edited with either Photomatix or HDR Efex Pro (some of these were taken awhile ago, and I don’t remember specifically which software I used for each photo).

September 2012: Brigantine, New Jersey

I was in NYC for about 4 days after a friend invited me to New York Fashion Week.  After the event was over, my friend Dan invited me up to his house in Brigantine for a little scotch, golf, and apparently spectacular sunsets.

We hopped to the other side of the island last minute, and I was treated to one of the most beautiful sunsets I’ve ever seen.

Sunset in Brigantine, New Jersey

June 2012: Petra Jordan

You’ve probably seen some of these photos around the site, as this was one of my favorite things I’ve ever shot.  Petra by night, is one of those “must do” bucket list type things.

I was fortunate enough to take a trip to Jordan sponsored by their tourism board, and the photo opportunities were limitless.

Petra, Jordan at night. Edited with Photomatix 4

December 2010: Portland, Oregon

The great thing about Portland in the winter, is it gets really clear.  This photo was taken from Vista Bridge, which is the most definitive “postcard” spot in Portland. I’ve always liked this photo. It’s just a shame I can’t find the original brackets, anywhere…

Skyline of Portland, Oregon

February 2012: Havana, Cuba

For years I’d wanted to visit the forbidden land that is Cuba.  I never thought it would actually be feasible until I began working for myself and I had a trip to Playa del Carmen planned.  Havana is just a quick flight from Cancun, so I grabbed a couple friends and said, why not?!

We smoked cigars at the place Hemingway used to hang out, and drank more mojitos than I thought possible.  This shot was taken from the top of Hotel Parque Central looking back at the Capital Building.

Sunset in Havana, Cuba. Capital Building in the background

April 2012: Yangshuo, China

Last April I was in China for the first time looking for business opportunities and spending some time with friends there.  One of them insisted we head to Yangshuo for a couple days. I’d never heard of this place, but boy was I glad we went.  Think of it as the outdoor capital of China.  This view is from outside our guest house.  The video below was a tour of the guest house.

Yangshuo, China

May 2010: Puert0 Galera, Philippines

During the red shirt protests in Bangkok, I had to take off at the last minute.  Where to? Well, I knew some people in the Philippines!  48 Hours later I was sitting on the beach in Puerto Galera.  While this photo makes it look pretty “third world” I promise, the majority of views were much more scenic.

Puerto Galera, Philippines

May 2010: Bangkok, Thailand

When I lived in Bangkok, the storms were unlike any I’d ever seen.  This night in particular the lightening was firing every few seconds and I still hadn’t bought a tripod yet.  So what did I do? I turned over some garbage cans and very precariously tried to balance the camera to get my first shot of lightning ever.  Shot with one RAW image.

Lightning in Victory Monument, Bangkok, Thailand

June 2010: Bali, Indonesia

On my first trip to Bali we spent an evening at Uluwatu, watching one of the most beautiful sunsets I’d ever seen.  This is one of the first HDR shots I ever took, and while it isn’t perfect, there’s no denying it’s a pretty gorgeous view.

Uluwatu, Bali, Indonesia

February 2012: Playa del Carmen, Mexico

Right after our quick stint in Havana, we buckled down in Playa del Carmen, Mexico for a week of work and margaritas.  We found probably the best deal in town and our huge two bedroom condo had a rooftop terrace and two other balconies.  Here’s the view from one of them:

View in Playa del Carmen, Mexico

August 2011: Las Vegas, Nevada

After a random series of events I found myself in Las Vegas, Nevada shooting a pilot for a TV show (that unsurprisingly didn’t get picked up).  I went out with a pro photographer at 2 am and took a bunch of photos on the strip.

To this day, this shot is still one of my favorites I’ve ever composed.

Anyway hope you enjoyed this quick little trip around the world! Where’s your favorite place you’ve ever photographed?

There’s no right or wrong answer to this question, but there are a few very important distinctions you should be aware of.

Essentially when shooting in RAW you’re saving ALL of the information that your camera records of an image, and it is not altered in anyway.  This gives you the most detail possible, as well as some pretty massive file sizes.

Most people traditionally shoot in jpeg format.  These are compressed files that are much easier to work with and usually smaller file sizes.  Most cameras will also tweak them a little bit to include more vivid colors out directly out of the camera.

Does it make sense for you to shoot in RAW? On a day to day basis, probably not. Unless you’re a professional photographer these photos will probably just take more space than necessary and not look as good directly out of the camera as their jpeg counterparts.  So if you don’t want to do a lot of editing to your photos, don’t shoot in RAW.

However, there are times that shooting in RAW can be really beneficial.

For me personally, if I’m shooting a beautiful sunset and doing HDR I will almost always shoot in RAW.  Why? Well for one, I know I’m going to be editing the photos later, so I’m not concerned about the additional processing of the jpeg.

More importantly however, is it provides a safety net.

When doing HDR it’s possible to take 1 RAW image and turn it into 3 HDR bracketed shots.

Let’s say I forget to set my camera to aperture mode and the depth of field in each of my three shots is totally off.  If I shot in RAW I can take the shot that’s at normal exposure, create my brackets from there, and still potentially have a great HDR image.

You can’t do that with jpeg.

So, in this article we’re going to look at exactly how to turn one RAW image into a series of 3 jpegs that are ready to be put through HDR software.

Some of my best HDR images were actually taken from one RAW, and this is especially useful if you’re shooting and don’t have a tripod.  This is also incredibly beneficial if you’re shooting a fast moving subject.  With this, you don’t have to worry about any of the ghost reduction or other processing that cant reduce the quality of your image.

The process is really simple, so don’t worry if you’ve never done it before.

Step #1: Choose Your RAW Photo

Simple enough, right?

If you’re taking this from a set of HDR brackets already, make sure you select the one closest to normal exposure as possible.  If an image is a little under or over exposed it can still work, but this will give us the best shot of pulling out the details in the next two brackets.

For this post, I chose a shot from last fall that I took in Brigantine, New Jersey.  Brigantine is an island that’s about a 5 minute drive from Atlantic City.

Below is the original RAW photo loaded up in Adobe Camera Raw. Looks pretty dark right? Well, wait until you see what happens just by tweaking the exposure slider a little bit.

Step #2: Load RAW Photo in Adobe Camera RAW (or Other RAW Software)

I personally use Photoshop to edit my RAW photos, but there are a lot of other alternatives out there.  We don’t need to do anything crazy, just edit the basic essentials of the photo, so whatever you generally use will be fine.

In Photoshop all you have to do is open a RAW image and it will pop up in Camera RAW.  Make sure you have the most up to date version, though.  I recently picked up a Canon S110 and shot some RAW images with that, and when I went to process them I realized I didn’t have the most up to date version and was unable to edit them.

Step #3: Adjust Exposure to -2 and Save as Jpeg

Once the image is loaded, find the slider for exposure. Set it to negative 2. Now save this image as a jpeg and label the file name as such (ie ____ HDR Under)

Step #4: Repeat step 3

Now repeat step three one more time, except this time set the exposure to +2 from the original file.  Now save as _____ HDR Over)

Overexposed Version of my RAW photo

Step #5: Save Original File as Jpeg

To finish it up, just save a version of the original file as a jpeg and label it ____ HDR Normal.

Step #6: Load your brackets into HDR Software

That’s it! You’re ready to roll. All you do from here is load your new brackets into your HDR software of choice and you’ll be good to go.

Here’s the final result after editing the photo:

Good luck and if you have any questions on how to do this, just drop a note in the comments section!

Use coupon code HDRpromo15 for 15% off any Nik Software or Photomatix product!

I’ve been doing HDR for over three years now, and for at least half of that time there really was only one option for editing professional looking photos: Photomatix Pro.

I’ve used that program and continue to use, it but I was skeptical to say the least when a friend of mine emailed me to say that there just might be some legitimate competition with HDR Efex Pro.

With a bit of hesitation I decided to give it a shot and installed the software.

It was about 17 seconds before my hesitation turned into excitement.

HDR Efex Pro is the real deal, and while it’s not necessarily better than Photomatix, it’s at the very least on par, and certainly has some advantages.

In this article we’re going to compare it directly to Photomatix and help you decide once and for all which one is the right choice for your HDR needs.

The Nik Workflow

I got my first copy of the original HDR Efex Pro a couple of years ago and it was my first introduction to Nik.

As a standalone program I found it lacking, but I LOVED the integration with Photoshop. All of Nik’s products work best in the Photoshop environment, and this is a big plus if you use their full suite of tools (I use Silver Efex Pro and Color Efex Pro all the time)

This is a review for HDR Efex Pro 2 however, and they’ve made quite a few leaps in terms of usability and quality of final results.

First Impressions

I’d spent a lot of time in the first version of the software so I had a good handle on how it worked.  This is why it was such a big surprise when I fired up the new version and was met with a screen that I hadn’t seen before.

As usual I selected my brackets and then hit the “merge dialogue” button (they really need a better name for this), and then was presented with a screen I’d never seen before.

Pre Process Screen for HDR Efex Pro 2

All of a sudden I had some new options.  Namely:

• Ghost Reduction – With control over how prominent I wanted it to be
• Chromatic Aberration – Helping to remove lens defects around the fringes of the photo
• Auto Alignment – Aligning brackets that weren’t shot on a tripod

Also more importantly than all of this, you could decide which photo to use as the primary base, and use a slider to adjust exposure on the fly.

This is great for night shots, as well as those in bright sunlight where the scene has a lot of contrast between dark and light.

Within processing two or three photos it was pretty clear just how beneficial this pre-process screen was.  I found it to be even more useful than the ghost processing in Photomatix (although you can be more selective with that software), and with every image I’ve thrown at it, it’s exceeded expectations.

Here’s the final version of that photo:

From my room in Aqaba, Jordan

The Editing Process

If you’ve ever used any of Nik Software’s other products, you’re going to feel right at home.  If you use their products and your’re also a Photoshop user then you’re really in luck, because their basic tool bar makes it so easy to access any of the plugins you want to use.

I use these pretty much every single day, and am digging into a couple new ones in the near future which I’m pretty excited about.

Once you get through the pre-processing, then you’re ready to start getting really creative.

You can select any number of presets over on the right hand side.  If you’ve read my other reviews, you know I’m usually not such a fan of presets, and for the most part that remains true here.  I might choose “deep” occasionally, or a couple of others – but I usually prefer to just go with the default process and tweak from there.

As you can see there are no shortage of options:

HDR Efex Pro 2 Primary Editing Screen

The one thing that stood out to me with the original HDR Efex Pro, and is only more pronounced in the more up to date version is just how easy it is to do exactly what you’re trying to do.

Nik uses unique technology called “control points” that really allow you to fine tune the details of your shot.  It does take a little getting used to the system, but in this case it really allowed me to get the sunset exactly how I wanted.  I’ve heard Viveza, one of their other programs, gives you even more control of this – so I’m excited to check it out.

That being said, it works great as it stands in HDR Efex Pro 2. Most importantly, it’s user friendly.  Other programs have tons of features buried under all kinds of sliders, but here’s its pretty apparent what everything does and how it’s going to do it.  It feels less like I’m aimlessly tweaking sliders, and more like I’m crafting a work of art, which is something I feel few pieces of photo software has managed to accomplish.

It’s just as easy to create a realistic looking HDR shot, as seen here:

More realistic Wadi Rum Sunset

…as it is to create something a little more surreal, as we can see with this similar image:

More surreal Wadi Rum, Jordan sunset

You also have a variety of finishing options which are a nice touch.  Borders, vignettes, etc. – it’s all very easy to do in the Efex 2.

Compared to Photomatix Pro 4

I could go on and on providing you screenshots and examples like many of the other reviews out there, but that’s not the purpose of this post.  The goal is to provide the person just jumping into HDR to find the best solution for them.

Your big dilemma is going to probably be between three options:

• HDR Efex Pro 2
• Photomatix Pro 4
• Photomatix Essentials 3

So let’s try and make this as clear as possible.

If you’re considering Photomatix Essentials – just go for that one.  It’s 1/3 the price of the other options, and is the best entry level option on the market – period.

If you want something that’s going to support the creative, and perhaps more professional side of you, then the decision gets a little bit more difficult, as both HDR Efex Pro and Photomatix are excellent pieces of software.  If you have the funds for both, then I highly recommend them both and I use each for different reasons.

Wadi Rum, Jordan Sunrise – edited with HDR Efex Pro 2

Later on I’ll do a full comparison for the two.  But for now:

You Want HDR Efex Pro If…

• You use other Nik Plugins – If you’re already familiar with the Nik Universe, HDR Efex Pro fits in perfectly. It integrates beautifully with pretty much any software you’d want to use it with (Photoshop, Lightroom, Aperture)
• You like slightly darker, grittier HDR –  When it comes to stormy weather shots, or anything that has darker images, then HDR Efex Pro really seems to excel for some reason, and it’s my go to for shots like that.
• Night HDR – Going along with the theme from above, I’ve had better luck using Nik for night shots.  Photomatix can produce shots just as good, but it seemed at times to be a little more difficult to get there.

You Want Photomatix Pro 4 If….

• You Do a Lot of Interior Shots – If you’re trying to capture realistic interior shots, say for real estate or other professional work, Photomatix was the winner.  It has specific exposure blending modes that make it really easy to capture both clear shots of the interior, as well as keeping the detail and not blowing out the scene in windows.
• You like brighter photos – Just as I like HDR Efex Pro for the dark shots, if you’re doing anything in sunlight or other bright lights, I think Photomatix does a better job of capturing those details.  Some people go overboard with this when processing, so just be careful not to turn it into an over-saturated mess (with either program)
• You want more online resources – Nik has some great help guides on their site, but if you’re looking for more user tutorials then you’ll want Photomatix. It’s been around longer so generally has a pretty dedicated user base.

Bottom Line

HDR Efex Pro 2 is an excellent piece of software and should strongly be considered to add to your Arsenal.  The real beauty of it however lies in it’s tight integration with the other Nik plugins.

So you’ll get the most value out of this if you pick up the full collection and use them all to give you the most flexibility with your images.

Use coupon code HDRpromo15 for 15% off any Nik Software or Photomatix product!

Bonus: To receive 15% off your Photomatix purchase type in HDRpromo15 into the Photomatix Order Page.

When I first jumped into Photomatix Essentials I didn’t know what to expect – and frankly my expectations weren’t extraordinarily high.

When it comes to creating high quality, lifelike HDR, it’s older brother Photomatix Pro is one of the best pieces of software around (along with HDR Efex Pro) - so I should have had high expectations, right?

Well, in my experience the more inexpensive pieces of software that promise quick, “plug and play”, photos never quite lived up to expectations.

It’s so easy to get HDR wrong.  Venture too far into the surreal, and you end up with an ugly mess. Don’t balance the lighting just right and the image looks fake – and don’t even get me started with ghosting in images.

This is where I thought it would be very difficult for HDRsoft to bring the quality of their Pro version into a stripped down “beginner friendly” version of Photomatix.

Thankfully, I was totally, and completely wrong.

First Impressions of Photomatix Essentials

If there’s one thing that I discovered very quickly about Photomatix Essentials its that it is the fastest way to create a high quality HDR image.

To put it through it’s paces I decided to use one of my favorite images (a night shot in Petra, Jordan), that I remember as not being the easiest in the world to get right.

Some components that make this shot a little tough:

• Shot at night under (many) candlelights
• Detail in the stars that you don’t want to lose
• People moving around in the distance by the candles

Here was the original image that I edited with Photomatix Pro 4:

You open up Essentials and immediately you’re presented with a basic screen to drop in your brackets – super simple.

What happens after that was particularly remarkable. Using 3 RAW format photos I had a preview ready in less than 10 seconds.

Using jpegs, it was less than 5 seconds.

Pretty speedy.

From there you only have 5 sliders to deal with and numerous presets.

This is where I got worried.

For me, presets in HDR rarely look good.  Each photo I shoot is so unique and difficult that using a preset, unless it’s one I’ve pre-saved, just ends up in ugly, flawed photos.

So only having those 5 sliders was a big concern.

Until I looked at the presets.

The default one, as expected, wasn’t so beautiful:

Photomatix Essentials Default Preset

But the next one I clicked on blew my mind:

Photomatix Essential Natural Preset

While not perfect, it was 95% as good as the images I spent 20 minutes trying to create in both Photomatix Pro and HDR Efex Pro.

It was one of the first times I was really happy with the way a preset came out for an HDR photo.  What’s more is I found one more that totally changed the mood of the photo but was equally as good:

Photomatix Essentials Adjusted Preset

After doing a few more tests with various images, I was totally impressed with Photomatix Essentials, and the fact that most of the images required very few (if any) tweaks to the slider.

Minor Shortcomings

You should take these with a grain of salt considering these aren’t necessarily shortcomings, as this software was created specifically to be introductory and beginner level.

Difficult to Improve Bad Photos

One of the nice things about HDR is it’s ability to take mediocre photos and make them good (just being honest here!)

If you move the sliders enough and spend a little time with an image that may have been a touch soft, or was slightly under/overexposed, you can still salvage it and turn it into a pretty remarkable shot.

Photomatix Essentials doesn’t give you much of that.  Because this software (purposefully) doesn’t give you control over all the tiny details, it’s tough to salvage some of those mediocre shots.

I noticed this big time with some of my point and shoot HDR. While I had great success with the photos that were decent from a technical perspective, I had to use Photomatix or HDR Efex Pro (plus some additional filters) to really salvage the ones that weren’t so great.

Tough to Make Basic Adjustments

Because of the lack of customizability, you really can’t do simple things like adjust the brightness or exposure, seeing a few more adjustments would have really gone a long way.

Again, not a be-all-end-all, especially if you already plan on doing some adjustments in Lightroom or Photoshop after the fact, but to have a truly beginner friendly, all inclusive piece of HDR Software would be nice.

Who it’s Perfect For

I think there’s going to be a lot of people who will love Photomatix Essentials.  It’s the fastest and easiest way to create decent HDR photos.

This will be great for the average photographer who doesn’t care about every little aspect of their photos, and just wants good looking HDR photos with little time or effort.

If you’re used to being able to control every detail of your photos, or if you have a subpar camera and like to use HDR to compensate, then you’ll probably want to stick with either HDR Efex Pro or Photomatix Pro.

Recommendation

If I were in the market for my first piece of HDR software I’d buy the full version of Photomatix.

Why?

Because it includes Photomatix Essentials.

Buy it and start with the basics.  Then as your skills improve you can slowly move into using the full program.  This is also nice because it includes the plugins to use with Photoshop and Lightroom as well.

Bonus: To receive 15% off your Photomatix purchase type in HDRpromo15 into the Photomatix Order Page.

Do you have experience with Photomatix Essentials? Tell us about it in the comments!

With the increasing popularity of HDR photography in general, more and more people are starting to experiment with the technique.

This includes everything from different types of HDR software, to HDR iphone apps, and for a growing amount on consumers, HDR with point and shoot cameras.

Traditionally you’ve needed to have high end cameras with bracketing modes, RAW capabilities and a decent tripod in order to have success with HDR.

However, with high quality phone apps becoming ever more popular we’ve seen some pretty decent results coming out of iPhone apps – including the native camera app for iphone.

But HDR on point and shoot cameras has often been left in this middle ground where results are spotty at best.  Most point and shoots don’t have the automatic capabilities of phones, and don’t have the easily accessible manual controls that we see in DSLRs.

On a recent trip to Asia, I decided I was going to challenge this theory, and leave my D90 at home and shoot solely with my Canon S110 point and shoot, and my iPhone 5 as backup.

What You Should Look for with Point and Shoot HDR

You can shoot HDR with any point and shoot, as long as it gives you the ability for manual control.  Many point and shoots have this buried in menus, so double check to see what your P&S includes.

Before this trip I picked up an open box Canon S110 for $299. A steal of a deal, but if you can find one under $399, it’s well worth it as it’s one of the best point and shoots I’ve used (especially when it comes to video). More on that later though.

The reason this one stood out was for it’s size, Camera Raw capabilities, and bracketing mode.

For those of you new to HDR bracketing simply means you can take a burst of shots at different exposures.  This makes HDR much easier, because you can simply select the bracketing mode, pick how far apart you want the exposures (I usually go for +/- 2 stops to get the highest range possible).  On a point and shoot, all you need is one click and the camera does the rest.

I was actually pretty surprised at how well the S110 handled some of these shots, and the results were better than I’d anticipated.

Key things to look for if you’re buying a new point and shoot and are interested in HDR:

• Manual Controls - You should be able to separately control shutter speed, aperture, and ISO on your own.
• Bracketing Mode (Most Important) - More and more mid to high range point and shoots include bracketing mode on their cameras
• RAW Capabilities - This essentially allows you to take photos that are much more detailed than the standard jpeg.  This can be very useful for HDR as often you can create an HDR image out of a single RAW image, where you’d have to have 3 bracketed images

Some Cameras to Look At

Like I mentioned, you can do point and shoot HDR with any camera with manual controls (skip this section if you already have one you plan to use).  However, there are some that are better than others. Here are a few that you should consider if you want to make sure you have something that will perform well:

• Canon S110 ($449.99, my camera).  The key benefit to this one is it’s size. It’s small, can fit in your pocket, and has most of the features you’d want in a high end point and shoot.
• Panasonic Lumix LX7 ($450) - The camera I would have bought had I not found such a good deal on the S110.
• Sony RX100 ($650) - The camera I’d bought if I wanted the best point and shoot on the market.

How Do You Edit the Photos

Originally I was going to suggest using Photomatix Essentials for point and shoot HDR.  It’s the best solution out there for less than $30, and I wanted to keep things simple, especially for beginners.

Then the more photos I edited, there more I realized, as much as I wanted to make this a beginner’s guide to point and shoot HDR – it really isn’t the best tool for the job.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s fantastic software, as you’ll see in our upcoming review – but with point and shoot HDR, your photos are likely going to have some flaws and won’t be quite as clear as what’s taken on a DSLR.

Becuase of this, using a Pro level solution like Photomatix Pro 4 or HDR Efex Pro 2, is going to give you more control to fix those shortcomings and give you the best chance at creating a high quality image.

This image below was actually edited with Photomatix Essentials. Looks good overall, but I just wasn’t able to control some of the details in the temple that would have made this photo look even better – this one could also use some noise reduction:

Angkor Wat Shot Bracketed with Point and Shoot and Edited with Photmatix Essentials.

Photomatix Essentials will give you a good result out of the box if you don’t want to do much tweaking.

Photmatix Pro however will allow you to get into all of the dirty details of your photo, allowing you to change everything from exposure to levels and everything in between.

Here’s an example of another point and shoot edited with the full version:

Photomatix Pro 4, along with Dfine 2 by Nik Software is a great combination for HDR editing as well as noise reduction (as noise will be even heavier with P&S cameras).

Note: Use the coupon code “HDRpromo15″ to receive 15% off any version of Photomatix or any Nik Software.

Some Examples of HDR Photos with Point and Shoot Cameras

So now that you know what to look for with a camera and how you’re going to edit, let’s go through the actual process of shooting HDR on your point and shoot.

It’s a pretty simple process, that is basically identical to doing it with a DSLR.

1) Set Up Your Camera on a Tripod

Because of the lighter profile of point and shoots, it’s more difficult to balance correctly – which makes a tripod even more important than it is on a DSLR.

This is a great example of do as I say, not as I do, considering most of the HDR from this trip was handheld.  My results would have been even better had I taken the time to do this, but part of my reason for leaving the DSLR at home was to minimize the stuff I was carrying.

If you do forgo the tripod, at least try and find a way to prop up or secure the camera.

Sunset in Guangzhou, China. HDR shot with Canon S110

2) Set to Aperture Mode

This is where a lot of people will make mistakes by leaving their camera set to “auto” or “P”. Why is this an issue?  Because when your camera is shooting at different exposure levels, it will adjust the aperture to compensate.

This will give you differing levels of depth of field, causing different areas of each photo to be in or out of focus. When you then combine the images, they become much less sharp.

A point and shoot is also not going to give you the option for really high depth of field options like a DSLR, so I usually try and set it at f/6.3-7.1 depending on the scene at hand.

If you have a little more experience you can set the controls manually in “M” mode, but getting everything dialed in can be much more of a challenge.

3) Turn on Bracketing

On most point and shoots this is buried in a menu, but if you’re shooting a lot of HDR you can often set the control ring to bracketing, making it easier to transition into that mode.

If you have a tripod and are going to take multiple brackets for one image you can shoot +/- 1 stop, but I shoot +/- 2 95% of the time.

4) Turn on RAW Mode (Maybe) - Because of the smaller sensor on your point and shoot, you want all the detail you can possibly get out of your images.  Putting it in RAW mode means you’re going to have that much more control after the fact.

This might add a little bit of processing time since RAW files are generally 3-4 times larger than a regular jpeg, but both Photomatix Pro and Photomatix Essentials have capabilities for processing RAW files.

If you’re concerned about having difficulty with these files later on, you can shoot in RAW + jpeg.  This will fill up your memory card quickly, but if you’re concerned about missing out on that perfect shot, it’s better safe than sorry.

Not to mention the fact storage is so cheap now, that it’s really not much of an issue.

4) Compose the Shot

Set up your shot on the tripod, and whenever possible make sure the movement with in the scene is kept to an absolute minimum to reduce ghosting and other processing issues.

5) Turn on Self Timer

Since you probably aren’t going to have remote shutter control for your point and shoot, you’ll definitely want to set the self timer to take the brackets.  The two second function should usually be enough, and this just ensures there’s not excess movement to the camera or tripod that will result in movement between frames.

6) Take Photo

Take the photo! Often I’ll take a photo of my hand before or after a bracket so that when I’m editing and processing I don’t have to decipher which images are part of which set of images.

What About “HDR” Modes on Cameras

You might be saying to yourself “my camera has an HDR mode, why dont I just use that?”

In short, because it sucks.

I have yet to come across an automatic HDR mode that really does anything worthwhile – including in my Canon S110.  There was no depth to the images, and it barely seemed to add any dynamic range to the image.

I’m curious to see how the latest DSLRs with built in HDR like the Nikon D7100 will do, but until then, if you want to do HDR, do HDR. Learn the process, and your results will be 100x better.

So How Does Point and Shoot HDR Stack Up to DSLR?

So after all of this, and a month of using nothing but a point and shoot, how does it stack up to using a higher quality DSLR camera?

Fair.

Ok, I take that back, fair to good depending on the situation.

Another Guangzhou shot, this time at night.

In good lighting and with a tripod, my S110 held up pretty well – as evidenced in the previous Guangzhou sunset image. However at night, the smaller sensor makes things a little more difficult and you can end up with some pretty noisy and/or washed out images.

For this one, I used a neutral density filter in HDR Efex Pro to minimize the light bleed in the night sky.

All that being said, considering you can throw a P&S in your pocket and have many of the same features found on a much larger, more expensive camera, it holds up pretty well in good shooting conditions.

The biggest issue I noticed with the point and shoots was focus and clarity.  Due to the smaller sensor and lack of full control (even with manual functions), it was difficult for me to get results I was truly happy with.

The images just didn’t come out quite as clear as I was hoping.  Much of this was because I often tried to squeak by with out a tripod (shame on me!), but thats just the sacrifice you make when going for convenience and portability.

Verdict: In a pinch or if you’re on a budget, you can get some good results out of your point and shoot – but you probably won’t be replacing your DSLR anytime soon if you want the absolute best quality.

Did you find this information useful? Would you like more information on Point and Shoot HDR photography? Let me know in the comments! I’m happy to write more on the subject if there’s demand for it.