High Dynamic Range Pics of Sydney Harbour by Michael Davies
Oh man...look at these absolutely gorgeous shots of Sydney harbour taken on a Canon Digital Camera and using the HDR process - bracketing your shots - shooting one underexposed, one at the proper exposure and one overexposed and then stitching them together using Tonal Mapping on the computer (as I understand it). These are from my mate Michael Davies - he's also a dab hand at Virtual Reality and Panoramic shots. Amazing thing is, he's only been at this a short while. Does it make you want to visit Australia?
For more of these great shots from Michael and some technical details see his Flickr Photostream and be sure to leave a comment. BTW if you want to have a crack at this, go to Hdrsoft.com for their Photomatix software where you can Download a Free Trial Version. They say "If you have ever photographed a high contrast scene, you know that even the best exposure will typically have blown out highlights and flat shadows. Photomatix offers two ways to solve this problem:
* Exposure Blending: Merge differently exposed photographs into one image with increased dynamic range.
* Tone Mapping: Reveal highlight and shadow details in an HDR image created from multiple exposures. The tone mapped image is ready for printing while showing the complete dynamic range captured."
There's also a terrific Tutorial on HDR techniques using Photomatix here at Vanilla Days.