Last Test Shot

I’ve been doing some technical tests with panoramas and HDR lately, and before you say “Oh no! HDR!!!”, I’ll explain my intentions.

Most people will think of over-sharpened, over tone mapped, surrealistic images when HDR photography comes to mind, and while some people do like it, I don’t think I’ll be doing too much of that. I just want to have it compliment my existing work flow instead of having it replace my work flow, and I wouldn’t want someone looking at one of my pictures to have their first thought be “well, looks like someone maxed all the attributes in photomatix again…”.

While I am just starting to try it, I have been observing the battles that have been going on in regards to HDR photography for a while now. Most people love it or hate it. My viewpoint is that subtlety is the best way to go. My current tests are more on the extreme side of what I’d like to accomplish, but I think that using HDR while still keeping a more natural feel is something that is overlooked, but in an obvious way. Works that employ that style are simply not noted as being HDR by viewers, and that is a good thing.

All in all, it is fun to experiment with and we’ll see if I will end up using it in a more serious manner.