#Hdr efex pro 2 wont load all the way full#
#Hdr efex pro 2 wont load all the way software#
#Hdr efex pro 2 wont load all the way series#

If you want to research your next camera with HDR in mind, that list is a good resource.

The folks at HDRSoft maintain an extensive list of bracketing features by manufacturer/model. Only a relative few on the market have capabilities for more than a 3 shot bracket. Many cameras вЂ“ most cameras вЂ“ arenвЂ™t really ideal for HDR. Just because your camera may be limted to, say, a 3 shot AEB bracket doesnвЂ™t mean youвЂ™re limited to a 3 shot bracket. This can also be beneficial in situations where tripods arenвЂ™t permitted, like in a museum. A bench, a shelf, a window ledge, anything like that can provide solid support. Also, if youвЂ™re in a situation where you have some other form of solid support, you can use that rather than a tripod. Using a tripod is still better but you can get away with it. But if your camera has a high enough frame rate (i.e., 6 fps or higher) and youвЂ™re shooting in a situation where your shutter speeds are high enough to take advantage of that frame rate and high enough that there wonвЂ™t be blur from camera movement then you can get away with shooting hand held. Of course camera movement causes problems with alignment in merging the source images.

#Hdr efex pro 2 wont load all the way software#

Bracketing at smaller increments just takes up card space and causes the HDR software to take longer to create the merged HDR file.ДЄ tripod is very important and very helpful but not an absolute necessity.

#Hdr efex pro 2 wont load all the way full#

As long as youвЂ™ve got the full brightness range covered with proper bracketing, 1 stop or even 2 stop separations between images give enough information for the HDR software to do its thing. I used to think that the more information I fed into the HDR program, the better my results would be. You donвЂ™t need to capture every 1/3 or 1/2 stop. Noise is more problematic and harder to fix. Having some overexposed highlights can sometimes be fixed with additional editing as I outlined in my Advanced HDR Editing tutorial. Similarly, if youвЂ™ve got highlight areas that donвЂ™t have enough detail, youвЂ™ll have overexposed areas in your resulting image. Part of the reason for this is that the software is trying to вЂmake upвЂ™ detail where it doesnвЂ™t exist. Since the HDR process accentuates all aspects of your source images, if youвЂ™ve got noisy source images, your merged HDR (and tonemapped LDR) will be noisier. You can end up with higher levels of noise than you might otherwise want. If your darkest and brightest shots still have some overexposed highlights and/or underexposed shadows respectively (i.e., you bracketed too narrow) then youвЂ™ll end up with a merged HDR that can have some problems. Using more shots than this wonвЂ™t help in the merging process and itвЂ™ll just slow down the merge time.

This will give you some вЂwiggle roomвЂ™ in your bracketed set and you can decide whether to use all of the shots or to throw out the lightest and darkest. WhatвЂ™s вЂњtooвЂќ over- or underexposed? Practically, you want your brightest image to have your deepest shadow exposed as a middle value and you want your darkest image to have your brightest highlight exposed as a middle value. You can toss out ones that are too overexposed or too underexposed. Just because you capture 9 or 11 shots in a bracket doesnвЂ™t mean you have to use all of them in the HDR merge. You can never capture too wide a set of bracketed exposures, but you can capture too narrow a set. LetвЂ™s take each one of these in turn and go a little deeper. Shooting RAW is best, but not an absolute necessity. Just because your camera may be limited to, say, a 3 shot AEB bracket doesnвЂ™t mean youвЂ™re limited to a 3 shot bracket. A tripod is very important and very helpful but not an absolute necessity. There are a few tips that can be helpful though. When it comes to the capturing of images in the field, how you do it is really up to you. The names of the individual tonemapping operators may be different but the functionalities are much the same. The tutorial will concentrate on using Photomatix from HDRSoft but the techniques discussed for using PM apply to other HDR software programs as well.

#Hdr efex pro 2 wont load all the way series#

After completing the review series on various HDR software programs and talking about how well each could create realistic and grunge/surrealistic results, I figured it might be appropriate to put together a more in depth tutorial on how the results were obtained as well as some of my own, personal, approaches to shooting and editing for HDR.