St Mary's Wiveton

[Stan]

Just got back from a week in north Norfolk doing all the usual wildlife sites but also stopping off to shoot some landscape and buildings. This one is a church in the village next to Cley and is 3 shots blended using the HDR option in CS3
WDYT

Stan

[djguk47]

Re: St Mary's Wiveton

Good looking HDR Stan without the obvious HDR "features", except for what appears to be a slight halo between the trees and the sky.
Just thinking aloud... how about a crop just above the tower so that the sky is half of what it is now and a crop beneath the line of trees at the base of the bank.
Nice detail in the brickwork.

David

[briansquibb]

Re: St Mary's Wiveton

Is the church tower vertical?

I think it might look good by cropping above the hedge in the foreground and vertically on the trees to the right of the tower

That is a good HDR in that it doesn't show

Brian

[Stan]

Re: St Mary's Wiveton

Thanks David and Brian

This shot was processed during the week on a small laptop and somewhere along the line I introduced the halo whilst processing the sky, so I have re processed from scratch and also cropped along the lines of both of your suggestions

Is the church tower vertical?

re checked and yes it is
WDYT

Stan

[DeeGee]

Re: St Mary's Wiveton

Like the last one best... shows the detail on the church with out taking away how steep the banking is that surrounds it.

Stan, Hope you don't mind but can you post the three original pictures that you used to make the shot and why you chose to blend them. If you don't mind?

I'm still trying to get my head around HDR shots. Seeing your three individual shots and the reason why you took three to blend into one might help my brain get around the process. If you know what I mean.

[djguk47]

Re: St Mary's Wiveton

Oh yes, the last one gets my vote.

David

[mikep]

Re: St Mary's Wiveton

Of the last 3 shots, #1 gets my vote, then 2, then 3!

... I like the sky, and the hedge line and gates to the right add to showing the church off nicely in it's rural setting.

I too would be interested to see the 3 shots that went into this HDR. I don't have any HDR software, so have not tried this yet, so although I sort of know the theory, I don't know what goes into it!

All the best, Mike.

[Muscat]

Re: St Mary's Wiveton

Stan of the 3 reprocessed shots #3 get my vote

[Stan]

Re: St Mary's Wiveton

Thanks Di David Mike and Ian

Seeing your three individual shots and the reason why you took three to blend into one might help my brain get around the process. If you know what I mean......I too would be interested to see the 3 shots that went into this HDR.

I haven't used HDR much myself but here used it as a means of getting an overall correct exposure as in one shot its quite difficult to get all the elements right, either the foreground is correct and the sky blown or exposing the sky correctly leaves the foreground in shadow. There are alternatives, I could have used my ND grads to fix the sky or could have taken two shots one for the sky and one for the foreground and manually blended them in PS or Elements or thirdly as here I set the camera up to take 3 shots with -1, 0 and +1 exposure compensation, then opened all 3 in PS and used the HDR option, which I dont think is available in Elements, to blend them all together before final adjustments as i woukld use with an ordinary shot
Here are the 3 shots straight from the camera

Stan

[DeeGee]

Re: St Mary's Wiveton

Thanks Stan, very helpful.. I see the reason behind it now.

I set the camera up to take 3 shots with -1, 0 and +1 exposure compensation

And for some reason I thought it was a lot more complicated to do than that.

[Stan]

Re: St Mary's Wiveton

And for some reason I thought it was a lot more complicated to do than that.

I think you can make it as simple or complicated as you want - mostly it is recommended you take 5 shots to blend at -2, -1, 0, +1 and +2 but that was too complicated for me

Stan