Comments on: New HDR camera, Lightroom tips

By: Samner

Samner — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 08:59:29 +0000

Hi John,
Interesting post!

By: Mark Banas

Mark Banas — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 09:54:09 +0000

Pentax has been shipping the K20D with built-in multi-exposure “HDR” for more than a year now. It is a regular function that can combine up to 9 exposures in succession. Sadly, the result is still an LDR image (albeit well-exposed), but at least the AEB on the K20D goes to 5 brackets at 2ev steps.
Beyond that, the camera can apply “fake Photomatix-style HDR tmo” as a post-process, and a “shout out to Adobe” is that it can be set to save DNG files as the raw default. Not bad for a (now) $700 DSLR!
…yeah, I’m a fanboi. ;-)

By: Scott Valentine

Scott Valentine — Sun, 22 Feb 2009 14:59:30 +0000

Interesting that Ricoh has taken the bracketing concept to HDR use. The next step (one hopes) is adjustable dynamic range in the camera at the sensor level. While very processor intensive, it would be great to have a camera that could ‘roll off’ the sensitivity of each pixel site as the exposure is made. Rather than linear collection, the charge on each pixel could be limited nonlinearly so highlights don’t completely blow out. But I think this would require some fundamental change in the way the receptors work, or some kind of ‘pre-exposure’ filter that behaves like an LCD shutter over each individual pixel.
Either way, it’s a tricky setup to be sure. Looks like Ricoh’s got the shortcut, which would only be limited by the time scale involved in firing two shots.

By: Stefan Klein

Stefan Klein — Sun, 22 Feb 2009 02:59:50 +0000

John, please update HDR in Photoshop CS5! I need more possibilities in terms of tonemapping. And btw. HDR produces horrible artifacts on high contrast edges (for example windows in an indoor shot)in the “local adaption” mode.

By: Markus Griebling

Markus Griebling — Sat, 21 Feb 2009 17:58:36 +0000

Hi John, Interesting post! I've just finished a video tutorial showing the use of the Photomatix Plug-in within Lightroom. Takes you from start to finish inside Lightroom. Here's the link (I hope I'm allowed to post it). http://www.profiphotos.com/blog/en/2009/02/hdr-photo-tutorial-using-photomatix-pro-in-lightroom/ Cheers, Markus [Thanks, Markus; I’ll check it out. --J.]

By: Joe Lencioni

Joe Lencioni — Sat, 21 Feb 2009 12:10:18 +0000

Fantastic! I was wondering how long it would take for HDR technology to be integrated directly into the camera itself. Way cool.