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S95 Automatic HDR mode (is great!)

  • solarshootersolarshooter +1 -1
    Posts: 419
    UPDATE: OK, finally tried it out. S95's automatic HDR mode is really cool! High Dynamic Range is a digital photo technique that takes three exposures of slightly different metering and combines them for a greater range of color and tonality. The Canon S95 is among the first cameras to do this all automatically within the camera. The results can be quite spectacular. Notes below.

    canon-s95-hdr

    A particularly vibrant autumnal Japanese maple. It started raining pretty heavily as I took these shots, so I wasn't thinking about composition too much. The sky was white indeed. Shot these with a tripod, of course.

    The top two photo are without HDR and with HDR straight from the camera. The second pair are the same images with levels tweaked in Photoshop.

    I'm pretty impressed by the results of HDR mode, particularly after the bit of darkness/brightness tweaking. Without HDR the tree looks flaming orange. The HDR mode seemed to subtly capture the range of colors in the tree: oranges, dark reds, yellows. There also looks to be a bit more detail and definition in the trunk and other parts of the image.

    I realized later that the Vivid color mode was activated for the non-HDR photo, which skews the comparison a little. But I think this comparison shows pretty well the extra color range picked up by the HDR (high dynamic range) mode.

    Cropped the ugly car. Final HDR photo:

    s95-hdr-maple-3

    ~~~~~~
    ORIGINAL POST:
    I'm a little embarrassed to admit that I still haven't tried out even half the features of the awesome S95.

    HDR is quite the buzzword in digital photography these days. It can do some amazing things with color and tonality, although many people claim it's overused.

    Does anyone want to share some impressions of the automatic HDR function on the S95, or have some photos to share?
  • DonDon +1 -1
    Posts: 21
    vision1
    Here is an example of a different way to use the HDR feature. I hand-held the camera and turned it while the camera made the three rapid succession shots for the HDR.
  • DonDon +1 -1
    Posts: 21
    vision2
    Here is another example of the same technique.
  • solarshootersolarshooter +1 -1
    Posts: 419
    Yikes, that's really cool! Triple exposures! Those are pretty bad examples of what I was looking for, but probably how I'll end up using the feature most of the time.

    Any one got any real HDR shots?

    (PS: @Don, checked out your other expressionist photoedits, think I'll start a thread for weirdo fun stuff...join in: http://s95site.com/forum/discussion/26/photoexpressionism)
  • solarshootersolarshooter +1 -1
    Posts: 419
    OK, I got a chance to take some HDR shots today, and I've added them to the beginning of the thread.
  • syfsyf +1 -1
    Posts: 144
    Hi, I've tried the auto-hdri when I first got the camera. But I wasn't thinking of doing a comparison when I was shooting it. So, this is not in any way accurate, but I'll just post what I have for the moment (haven't taken any hdri since)

    Ok, this first picture is NOT hdri. I was on top of a mountain and the sky was overcast and really bright. As you can see, I got the foreground but the background was totally lost.
    hdri_1

    Next, I decided to try the auto-hdri mode. This picture was taken just a few metres away from the 1st spot. I put the camera on a stone wall, and this is what i got...
    hdri_2
    The composition is awful, I know... but here you can see all the details which was impossible to get earlier...

    Oh, and I don't reckon the camera is smart enough to produce good results with auto-hdri in low light conditions... (care to try, anybody?)
  • gdrothgdroth +1 -1
    Posts: 4
    I have also been experimenting with HDR on the S95. This feature did not exist on the s90 so I purchased the Hydra HDR plug in for that camera. Now that I have the S95 (my S90 was stolen), I'm enjoying the new camera. I'm a little surprised, but the side by side comparisons of the auto HDR versus the commercial HDR favor the former. I am surprised mainly because the auto HDR can (apparently)only shoot JPEG images, whereas in Hydra I used RAW for the inputs. I'd like to upload these two side by side images for the community to discuss. How do I upload two jpeg files to this comment?
  • solarshootersolarshooter +1 -1
    Posts: 419
    @gdroth - Upload your images to TinyPic, Imageshack, Photobucket, Flickr, or one of the other image hosts and then cut and paste the HTML code provided.

    The S95 does all the RAW stuff internally and then outputs a JPEG as the final HDR composite image. There's lots of different ways to make an HDR image, with many different possible results: you can adjust the bracketing to different levels, use more than three exposures, etc.

    The in-camera HDR mode only does it one way, but it does it in a way that comes out really well. You could still shoot multiple bracketed images in RAW on the S95 and then composite a custom HDR image on your computer.

    Very interested in seeing your photos.
  • gdrothgdroth +1 -1
    Posts: 4
    http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5203/5293616615_d6e165c248_s.jpg

    http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5168/5294212922_12f97b0c95_s.jpg
  • gdrothgdroth +1 -1
    Posts: 4
    in camera HDR

    Hydra HDR

    Here are the two HDR pix, one using the s95's built in HDR capability, the other constructed from three RAW images using Hydra HDR plug in on Apple Aperture. There was no other adjustments made. I'd welcome people's comments on the relative quality of these and any suggestions to improve.
  • solarshootersolarshooter +1 -1
    Posts: 419
    The second one seems to expose the outdoors better, which I prefer.

    But you can probably adjust the overall exposure while shooting HDR just by pointing and half pressing at different areas.
  • solarshootersolarshooter +1 -1
    Posts: 419
    sibley (s95 hdr mode)sibley (no hdr)
    With and without HDR. Levels adjusted about equally in Photoshop.
  • syfsyf +1 -1
    Posts: 144
    @gdroth - I like the 1st image as I can see a lot more details. The 2nd one is overall too dark, hence the properly exposed exterior; but a silhouetted interior.
  • stststst +1 -1
    Posts: 110
    I have been playing with the HDR mode on my latest trip. And here is the comparison to my "normal procedure". The first picture is the HDR from the S95
    HDR with S95
    and the next one is the picture I created by blending two tonemapped images (created by using Luminance, which is open source). I like the looks of both
    Wechsel Luminance
  • solarshootersolarshooter +1 -1
    Posts: 419
    Nice shapes in these images...
  • stststst +1 -1
    Posts: 110
    In the thread "Where is everyone located ( http://s95site.com/forum/discussion/45/where-is-everyone-located/#Item_10 ) @syf points out to the fact that AutoHDR helped him a lot in this backlit situation (where I love the coloring). This is a good (and hidden) tip - so I wanted to point out to it.
    Until now I used the AutoHDR to play with it and when the foreground is way darker than the background (clouds).
    In which situations did you use the AutoHDR and get results you were satisified with?
  • syfsyf +1 -1
    Posts: 144
    Will you look at these? I did a comparison between AutoHDR mode, and then try to replicate the settings in Manual, this time in low-light condition. Quite a difference, eh?

    AutoHDR_lowlight_comparo

    - One thing I noticed is that the autoHDR contained significantly more colour-noise; although both were shot at ISO800. Anybody has any idea why this is happening?

    And... one more for fun.
    lowlightHDR_2
    This one was shot handheld, autoHDR mode in vivid. That's one ceiling lamp shot by moving vertically between the exposures... :)
  • solarshootersolarshooter +1 -1
    Posts: 419
    Interesting comparison. Though I can't say I like the HDR photo better in this case.

    And I have no idea why there is more color noise on the HDR shot. I would think that interpolating the three exposures would "average out" the noise, but maybe I just don't understand the HDR procedure well enough.

    That handheld effect with the lamp is very cool, will have to play around more with that.
  • syfsyf +1 -1
    Posts: 144
    Hmm... within my limited understanding of the technicalities of digital photography, I have a theory about the increase in noise.

    My logic says that if the s95 blends 3 RAW exposures, then converts them to JPEG, the resulting image would be less noisy (more light info = less noise)

    So I'm guessing the camera combines 3 rasterised versions of the exposures to produce the image. In this case, whatever noise level in average will look 3 times more pronounced. (Day scenes might not produce this because the noise is relatively low to begin with)

    Ergh, I don't know... that's just a hunch. :p
  • stststst +1 -1
    Posts: 110
    If you do manual HDRs you will also come into contact with color noise when tonemapping. HDR is definitely some work in post. I am a little bit disappointed, because it would be so nice if you could have the single brackets of the HDR, so you would have the possibility to remove ghosting...
  • solarshootersolarshooter +1 -1
    Posts: 419
    Wait, don't we have an automatic exposure bracketing feature?
    I don't have experience with manual HDR, so I don't know if it would be useful for this.
  • xieqiaoxieqiao +1 -1
    Posts: 20
    I'm greatly impressed by the creative use of hand-held autoHDR to produce ghosting deliberately.
  • Simon_GardnerSimon_Gardner +1 -1
    Posts: 88
    Yeah. That's neat. Well I don't hand-hold, but if you've got people or machines wandering about in the frame the effect is very funny.
  • xieqiaoxieqiao +1 -1
    Posts: 20
    HDR image
    I created the HDR using Photomatix.
  • HitmanHitman +1 -1
    Posts: 426
    I noticed that when shooting RAW I sometimes can't select autobracketing? Anyone got any ideas on why this is?
  • johnymuttonjohnymutton +1 -1
    Posts: 2
    As far as the noise question concerning HDRs. It is true that the HDR process adds noise to the image. It is best to shoot with as low ISO as possible. It may also be necessary to do some post processing to reduce noise further in trouble areas of the image.
  • colincolin +1 -1
    Posts: 59
    I've taken a series of shots of the same subject, some HDR, some not. Now, viewing them in Zoombrowser, I'm not entirely sure which are HDR and which are not. I think I can see the differences, but is there any way of checking to be sure?
    Edit: Cracked it - preview mode!
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