I would have LOVED to have seen some dramatic backlit scenes as examples. I was most interested in the lighting examples around the 3 minute mark in the above video because of the way you can relight shadows due to the latitude in the file/capture.
Here’s some steps I’ve used for generating some motion/video out of HDR stills. There are many different workflows and I’ll touch on some of them from an overview perspective now. The first one is the workflow I employed for an older clip shot at Eden Gardens State Park in North West Florida. For reference, this is the clip (overview to follow below it).
I shot it with a Nikon D3 with a Nikon 14-24mm f/2.8G lens. It sat on top of a fluid head tripod I use for video work. I also had a shutter release cable attached to the D3. I set the camera to automatic bracketing and once I determined the mid point I switched from aperture priority to full manual so that each of the AEB sequences I was about to fire would be EXACTLY the same. I determined I would not need to go a full 9aeb and set the D3 to fire off 7 shots with 1EV steps between. I lowered the settings of the camera to shoot JPEG in a size that is larger than HD.
Also of critical importance is locking down white balance. I chose Daylight here (an obvious choice), but will often dial in an exact Kelvin setting for other lighting situations (although Kelvin WB selection is generally not available in lower end DSLRs).
If I wanted to shoot RAW I would not have been able to have captured the entire tilt move in just over 60 seconds due to the buffer issues, but the lower JPEG setting meant I would never tap out the buffer and could shoot burst after burst easily. Also, because the steps were only 1EV jumps between each of the 7aeb captures, I was comfortable only shooting JPEG. I would NOT attempt shooting JPEG for anything larger than 1EV jumps between each shot for this type of approach. Time was critical here to capture the entire tilt move in a short period of time. (I shoot RAW for all my other typical HDR workflows, including HDR Timelapse)
The shutter release of the camera was set to continuous so that I could hold down the shutter release cable button with one hand to fire off a full 7 shots at 9fps while keeping my other hand on the tripod handle to make small incremental movements to tilt up after each 7aeb capture. I do it this way to be quick enough to capture the entire tilt move seen in the video in a little over 60 seconds.
To repeat myself slightly now…, I have the camera ready to capture the brackets in continuous shutter release mode and then prepared for the first AEB capture by aiming the camera slightly below the horizon into the deep shadows. I then fired off a burst by holding down the shutter release cable button and quickly moved the tripod a very small (unmeasured and done by eye) amount; slightly tilted up for the next capture. Then again held the shutter release cable button to fire off another 7aeb and repeated this process until the tilt to the sky was complete. This took all of about one minute to capture.
Back home I dump the images to a folder on the computer and then I launched photoshop to begin the merge to HDR process. You don’t have to use photoshop as the program to merge to HDR, but back in 2008 when I put this together that was the process I used. I had a few scripts that I had created that had photoshop merge to HDR and then use custom settings to tonemap out to 16 bit TIFFs.
I employ two alternative workflows these days. One of which is where I merge to HDR in applications that batch merge and have them save .EXR files for each merge. Those .EXR files are then imported into either Adobe After Effects or Eyeon Fusion and then I use open source plugins to do the tonemapping in those compositing programs as well as the ensuing optical flow.
But in 2008 those plugins did not exist yet and this process I’m still describing was the workflow I used for the Eden Gardens sequence.
What you see below in the screen shot (click to enlarge or right click and open in a new window) is one of those 7aeb sequences in the merge to HDR dialogue. I’m just showing you that to show you that the dynamic range of the scene was pretty large for an outdoor shot and the sky was blown out when you could see the leaves straight ahead and the leaves were pitch black when the sky was properly exposed.
Like I said, there are several programs out there that can automate the process of merging and tonemapping your brackets and I plan to cover how to use them in this capacity in some future posts and training, but the process I employed here was a home grown merge to HDR and tonemapping recipe I used for Photoshop CS3. In the end I had 30+ Tiffs from that automated process to then use as the skeleton for an image sequence. I then take those Tiffs to the next step for optical flow treatment.
Before I move to that next step, here is a larger view (click for larger image) of a single tonemapped frame, along with the 7 shots above the top of it showing you the dynamic range covered for that one image.
The next step I did then was to take the TIFFs into Apple Shake which treats the group of single images like a sequence. I then used custom settings (see image below; click to enlarge) to expand the number of frames to be created BETWEEN each of the frames I was importing into it. In other words, Apple Shake was now going to create the frames and guess at the pixel movement between the frames I shot in the garden. There are other programs such as After Effects, Final Cut Pro, Fusion, etc that can accomplish the same thing with optical flow, but I used Shake in this instance.
I also recropped the image in Shake to match the ratio of HD footage and had it export the sequence as 1080p ProRes footage which I planned to send to Final Cut Pro to add audio and titles (see image below; click to enlarge).
Then I imported the 1080p footage into Final Cut Pro (see image below; click to enlarge) and added sound and some titles to export to various formats (including a web version which exists on Vimeo).
Excellent to see this work done. The cost of the camera is beyond mere mortals and it is huge, but this is coming to us all in a not so distant future. Its only a matter of time before we have true HDR Video devices that can tackle difficult exposure issues that exceed current day sensors.
Check this video out!!! Amazing results!
I’ve toyed with pseudo HDR Video myself, but nothing real time. This was created with a Nikon D3 shooting brackets one after another, then tonemapped and tweaked in post to create a video like tilt.
Today I edited the HDR Timelapse sequence of the Las Vegas sunset. I had shown one frame from the sequence over the weekend and posted a larger version previously as well. This is one single tonemapped edit from the HDR Timelapse sequence. (Video link to Vimeo below).
Today I had a real estate shoot cancel, so I got a bunch of past real estate shots edited and then took some time to piece together the Las Vegas Sunset HDR Timelapse. Because I chose to merge to hdr and tonemap that one single image over the weekend (above) using Photomatix Pro, I thought I’d use Photomatix Pro again for the entire sequence. What the hell. Its not for a client so a little over saturation won’t matter here. I made a few mental mistakes in the pipeline because I generally use other apps, but the results are O.K. for government work :)
This was the capture/post flow:
Nikon D3 + Nikon 85mm f/1.4D shot through my hotel window on a tripod utilizing the in camera HDR Timelapse (You can combine a timelapse with bracketing in the D3). I chose to go with a 7AEB with 1EV steps and the camera was firing off that bracket every 15 seconds. Of the 7AEB I killed off the final over exposed image of each bracket. I felt adding that latitude would brighten the image too much. So each merge to HDR was 6 shots spaced 1EV apart. The total number of tonemapped shots was 90. Basically covering a span of 22 mins 30 seconds worth of time during the sunset. Both the Merge to HDR and Tonemapping was done in the batch feature of Photomatix Pro. I then took the tonemapped images into Final Cut Pro for time and color treatment before exporting for YouTube & Vimeo.
Because I shot this sequence in portrait mode, I opted to make slight color correction differences to two versions and post one video with both playing together. I should have pushed on image a lot harder to show variation. Now that I’ve watched it online it seems very subtle.
I also simultaneously shot a HDR Timelapse a foot away from the D3 with a Canon T2i in horizontal mode as wide as the kit lens will go (18mm for that EF-S, but on a crop body). I shot for a full hour with the T2i. About 15 minutes prior to setting up the D3 and the same after the D3 exhausted the compact flash I had in it. It will be interesting to see those results versus the D3.
I’m no expert when it comes to compression/encoding. I can only say that the video looks a hell of a lot better in FCP than online!
Vimeo 720p Version LINKED HERE(opens in a new window)
I’ll be speaking briefly about HDR and HDR Video at NAB via an invite from Mike Seymour of FXguide.com. It falls under their time slot in the Post Pit at the NAB Show. If you plan on being at NAB, come say hi :)
I’ll be in Vegas from Friday April 9th (land 5pm) and leaving Friday April 16th (afternoon flight). A “Work-cation”. I’ll be shooting far too much and often to consider it a vacation. But this is what workaholic geeks do in their spare time!
I had the pleasure of speaking with Carl Olson of 16 x 9 Cinema who runs the Digital Convergence Podcast. He interviewed me about HDR photography, HDR Video and in the process I also explained a little about how I got started and a bit about my typical workflow.
Jay Burlage – HDR filmmaker (Michael James cites Jay as a leading source of information on the OpenMoco project and creator of gorgeous time-lapse cinema. Check out Jay’s video below.)
HDR Video is something I started toying around with in 2007. The post production side of it was a challenge and a whole series of blog posts to touch on what I’ve found to be “best practices” for me. The image below shows one single frame of the video. Each frame actually consists of 7 shots taken on continuous shutter release at 9fps on a D3. Each frame was merged to HDR and tonemapped and then laid down in Final Cut Pro’s timeline. The D3 was on a tripod with a fluid head and it was a manual (not perfect) tilt move.
I started doing the HDR Video segments for architectural shoots for builders, architects, realtors, rental companies, vrbo … the kitchen sink. I had exported them out for video CD-Roms and marketing DVDs. The problem then was that the whole HD-DVD versus Blu-Ray DVD was a battle that had not been fully settled yet. So I didn’t bother exporting out the segments to high definition. I’m going back to old hard drives and bringing that footage back online into Final Cut Pro and doing that now so that I can export out to 720p for Vimeo and 1080p for YouTube.
The first one I converted to HD was not an architectural interior, but rather a segment I shot near the back yard of a client’s home for sale that happens to bump up against a state park here in North West Florida called “Eden Gardens”. I’m still exporting and uploading the YouTube 1080p version and that won’t be done until later tonight after the Super Bowl, but the Vimeo 720p version is live now. I’d let it cache and watch it full screen. There is also a link to the right and below that allows you to download the video to your computer if you want to see it in much greater detail. It is 720p, H.264 quicktime at 30fps.
I’m not even going to embed it. You really need to view this at full rez. Here’s the link: HDR VIDEO on VIMEO – 720p HD
I’ll be uploading more videos in the coming weeks. All were shot from 2007 to 2009.
Click the smaller image to launch the larger version. I also shot a pan on a tripod and have created HDR Video out of that Penthouse View :) 15 hrs ago
@Filmbot I know! It is amazing. Built for a little over 1000 euros. It even does timelapse. The gearing precision is key. Gigapan is flimsy. in reply to Filmbot1 day ago
