Rather than cut and paste every single option and feature, I’ll link to their main page (there is an english button on left to translate).
Of particular noteworthiness to me is that it allows bracketing up to 10 shots. Clearly allowing for some amazing HDR panorama captures.
Options Galore
Their site also has many LCD captures to show you all the options dialogues so I won’t bore you with that list or multiple screen captures here as well. Just one image to show you the UI.
The GigaPanBot, Gigapixel Panorama Robot creator says it is a private project and to email if you would like information about how to build one yourself! I’m sure if you were willing to write a check they might help faster or who knows. Just speculating!
Finally, the GigaPanBot in action firing off side by side mounted Canon+Telephoto monsters for dual coverage. CRAZY!!!
Are you in Florida? Are you looking for some quality one on one HDR training?
Here’s why I ask.
I am heading to Ft. Lauderdale (soon) to do some one on one training for an established architectural photographer. Specifically to show them my HDR workflow. They reached out to me after surfing the net tirelessly looking for those using HDR for architectural photography.
The reason I’m posting this is two fold.
Yes I’m available for one on one training (for a fair price or trade of services)
This is last minute and I’m planning on driving which means I could make myself available to work with another photographer or photographers in Florida.
I could take multiple routes to get to Ft. Lauderdale. Here is a map of my starting point and destination (CLICK IMAGE TO ENLARGE).
As you can see, by choosing which interstate(s) to take from NW to SE, I could hit any part of the state easily. The date is NOT set yet, but will be finalized in the next 48-72 hours. Basically as early as this tuesday July 27th through August 5th. That date could be determined by YOU effectively because I told the other photographer I am putting the word out on Twitter and my blog first.
If you live in florida and have been wanting to either kick start your HDR knowledge or take it to the next level, then email me at DIGITAL COAST IMAGE at GMAIL dot COM.
The photographer in Ft. Lauderdale has requested one on one only to use their equipment and software, so even if you live in that city, I wouldn’t be able to include you in that session.
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.
The help is what I need. I’ve uploaded a gallery and if you have the time to help me out by viewing and telling me your favorite top 10 or so shots I’d be very, VERY appreciative.
This is about 8%-10% of the images I’ve shot for realtors, builders, etc over the last year. About 10 shots are more than a year old and I can’t quite let them go. I actually could have uploaded many other shots, but I have some shoots only on stacks of DVDs and have long since wiped the shots off of hard drives.
Oloneo PhotoEngine is a new player in the HDR space. They just released their public beta 1 of their PhotoEngine application (links at end of post). I am very impressed. Not only does it have a very desirable tonemapping operator, but it also has a truly unique way to approach relighting a scene in 32 bit space if you shot that scene with various light sources while the camera stayed on a tripod for each lighting change. It is amazing. User interface comments and samples here: http://www.digitalcoastimage.com/photoengine/index.html
Click Image to View Larger Version
I’ve been using multiple applications to achieve the results I am getting with just PhotoEngine. However, I’ve only run a few brackets through it so far and I’ve only tested landscapes, no architectural interiors. I will report back what my results are for those much higher dynamic range scenes once I’ve had time to do so. Here’s the biggest win using this app…
The slider to crush the dynamic range down does so WITHOUT introducing unwanted detail enhancement. So… You get to pull up shadows and bring down highlights with that slider and it has NO IMPACT on detail or sharpening. Yipppeeeeeeee!!!!!
The slider just below the tonemapping strength slider is the one that seperately controls detail strength. Finally an application that gives you the results of Enfuse/Enblend without introducing unwanted detail cranking. Oh, and did I mention halos? No. Because I’ve been unable to create any halos thusfar!!! Crazy!
I’m just addressing the default setting here which is the local tonemapper. There is also a drop down that allows you to switch to a global tonemapper or you could use the more detailed Advanced Local Tonemapper which has more controls surrounding how detail is enhanced.
Also, Oloneo PhotoEngine also has a very effective HDR DeNoise feature that reduces noise WITHOUT blurring/smoothing the image details. Another major feature of PhotoEngine is that it is a very capable RAW processor.
And if that wasn’t impressive enough, the Relighting module allows you to take separate frames (that you took from a tripod) of a scene that was shot with different lights turned on/off for each frame. On the merge PhotoEngine recognizes the different light sources and then get this…
… it allows you to control each light seperately for both white balance, hue and luminance controls. FRIGGIN’ AMAZING!!! It actually creates separate controls in the user interface for each light source so that you can control them all separately for lighting. Its easier to watch it in action then explain so watch the YouTube video on their landing page for that Relighting module.
OK… so the app has some pitfals. No mac version (that’s going to upset a ton of folks). I don’t see any way to save recipes/settings and I don’t think it has any kind of batch processing. I know it doesn’t have any ghosting controls either. That said, there’s a lot to like.
Here’s the link again which has a gallery showing you various controls of the user interface and some sample images:
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).
HDR Expose by Unified Color - www.UnifiedColor.com
HDR Expose was just announced this morning over at http://www.unifiedcolor.com/ and is available for purchase on July 12th.
HDR Expose is a new application with a different user interface than HDR PhotoStudio 2 with some new workflows as well. In addition to batch processing it also now plays nicely with Adobe LightRoom and Apple Aperture.
I was already impressed with HDR PhotoStudio 2 and I’m even happier now with their HDR Expose offering.
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.
Just a quick update. I’ve been out of town shooting, but recently got back and busy editing stuff I shot the weeks prior to heading out of town to shoot. A few links of recent edits. (which were taken before the huge oil slicks destroyed the beaches)
Again, I shoot rather large and tightly spaced brackets using the promote control.
This is your chance to help determine where and when my first workshop will likey be (city).
I get emails weekly with questions as to how I’m achieving my results and about my HDR pipeline. I always defer to just watch the blog for any information about workshops and/or any video training online or off. That ends up leading to more questions about what kind of training I plan to provide. One on one, workshops, online training, etc.
I also get asked what books I have read or who I trained under to learn what I know about HDR. None and nobody are the answers, therefore I can’t point you in any direction to learn what I know. Everything I have learned and will teach are techniques, tricks and work arounds that I had to figure out on my own. When I started looking around at what others were teaching about HDR, that was when I first realized how little information there was about pipelines/workflows for commercial work.
If you are looking to just use HDR for artistic images or creating grunge, that is so easy. Just use Photomatix and ramp up the sliders. There really is no hard core training needed for that genre if you are just looking to create grunge. There are some teaching how to take it a step further in post, but from what I’ve seen they are actually teaching you photoshop techniques and most of the magic they are teaching are photoshop tutorials, not HDR workflows.
I have no issues with that look personally, but The Robb Report, Architectural Digest, duPont Registry and other publications demand realism. And the first time you shoot for an interior designer, custom home builder or architect… I can promise you that they will NOT tolerate hue shifts and color saturation issues. Your repeat business from them will largely be determined by how well you can represent their product. My experience has been that they expect their work to be represented as precisely as they created it.
Most folks that tap my shoulder requesting training are looking for something different than what they have found out there already. So let me start by addressing interest and needs. I get requests about my workflow from two sets of photographers.
The first is those that are INTERESTED in creating realistic looking images via my HDR pipeline, but it isn’t do or die for them. Interests are everything from landscapes to HDR portraits. Most of these photographers who have emailed me are either advanced amateurs or shooting professionally part time. In either case, they are serious about quality and want a more definitive recipe to get better results.
The other camp is comprised of photographers either shooting full time and looking to add real estate / architecture to their current services or photographers that are already shooting real estate, but want to know how I’m tackling all the annoying problems associated with shooting interiors. This group NEEDS (and wants) all the little tips and tricks in my pipeline from capture to final image to better tackle exposure issues associated with shooting interiors.
LOCATION, LOCATION, LOCATION
If you would be interested in attending a workshop covering any of my workflows, then shoot me an email and let me know what the nearest city to you is (with an airport). I’m not against traveling abroad if there is enough interest. However, if I’m going to fly into an area, I will do so only if there is enough demand in that region to make the time for a workshop.
The last time I posted my email here I got spammed badly so I’ll just ask that you use the email linked at the bottom of my home page http://www.digitalcoastimage.com/
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 :) 16 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
