Brackets

With each HDR photo, there is a question, how much brackets should you take. For this photo, I used 7. For 90% of all my shots, I use only three shots. This is mostly due to convenience, as taking more on a Canon camera is not so straightforward (and usually not practical). But from my experience, I have noticed a difference between three bracket shots and 7-9 bracket shots. The HDR’s from more shots, are in my opinion, better. The added data really helps to bring out all the detail in a scene and the transitions between dark a light areas, are more gradual, making less problems.

But there are still scenes, where there is no difference. If there is a small dynamic range in the scene your’re photographing, there is no use for the additional shots. But scenes like this, where there is a very high difference between the dark and light areas, it’s really better to go with more shots.

The beauty of Nature

I just love how this one turned out. It even is my current desktop wallpaper (and I never use my own photos as wallpapers :) ). This was such a lovely sunset last weekend. All the green colors, with the sun shining through. It was just beautiful. The only thing I regret, that I forgot my IR filter, because I think that It would create great results in such light. Maybe next time :)

HDR from 7 shots, taken with Canon 7D with Sigma 10-20mm lens, from a tripod.

Old Castle in Banska Stiavnica

I spend few hours recently in Banska Stiavnica. It’s a very old mining town in Slovakia, and exaclty at the time I was there, they had a festival so the city was full of people. At the end, this worked out great, as the castle was almost empty :)

HDR from three shots, taken with Canon 7D with Sigma 10-20mm lens, handheld.

Sunset over Mikulov

The first time I was at Mikulov, I saw, that there is a very nicely situated hill right next to the city. So the second time, I went there, I went directly to this hill and waited for the sunset. And this is what I got :)

HDR from 7 shots, taken with Canon 7D with Sigma 18-200mm lens, from a tripod

Behind the Temple of the Three Graces

This is a really lovely temple, and it even looks better from the front. But as there were too many people there, to make a really nice shot. So I went and took one from the back :)

In the shot, the Temple of three Graces in Lednice, Czech Republic.

HDR from three shots, taken with Canon 7D with Sigma 10-20mm lens, from a tripod.

Chateau Valtice

I’m really happy with the composition on this one. It took me 6 tries to get the whole chateau and the whole reflection into one shot. There were just 1-2 pixels between the top of the tower and the end of the photo. I had to add a little bit to the top and bottom, and fill it using content aware, so it’s not completely at the border.

I’m not 100% happy with other parts of this photo, as I could really do with a little more brackets, especially few brighter ones. The difference between the brightly lit chateau and the surroundings was just too much for only three shots. Maybe next time :)

In this photo the Chateau in Valtice in Czech Republic. The bottom part is the reflection in the fountain in front of it. It was turned off in the evening, so it was almost like a perfect mirror.

HDR from three shots, taken with Canon 7D with Sigma 10-20mm lens, from a tripod.