Comments on: Ansel Adams, a time machine and Photomatix

By: Dave

Dave — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 12:58:16 +0000

A cracking article.
Photomatix and HDR software in general seem to be coded by geeks who have no appreciation of photography. In my opinion, stay clear of them and learn how to bracket and blend shots in Photoshop. You have far more control over your output, rather than relying on some nasty software algorithm from a programmer who has no appreciation of the beauty of photography.

By: Editor

Editor — Mon, 11 May 2009 03:51:47 +0000

That image of yours is exactly what I am talking about, Francesco: controlled, sympathetic to the subject-matter, not overcooked in any way but just using the technique to squeeze into one frame as much of the dynamic range in the subject as you can.

I love chromasia’s site and am a follower. I agree with you; great work. Please don’t let my choice of black-and-white make you think I only think HDR works in that medium. It was more a fact that with SOME images, it does work so nicely and – because Mr.Adams worked in mono – HDRs in mono make for an interesting comparison with his work.

Here is my set of HDRs on Flickr, many of which are in fact colour. I know you have seen most them anyway but for some readers of this page, they may be new.

Thanks for your comments, sir, which are – as usual – on the mark.

By: Flanegan

Flanegan — Sun, 10 May 2009 09:28:28 +0000

Exactly!! I hate the current trend of HDR because you mention the whole thing above… over-saturated, over-blown, multi-coloured vomit.

I try to explain some of my friend hows HDR works with the zone system but looks like they’re not interested with it.

What to do..

By: Francesco Gallarotti

Francesco Gallarotti — Sun, 10 May 2009 04:07:01 +0000

While I agree that most HDR we see today is just plain bad, I recommend taking a look at chromasia tutorials (http://www.chromasia.com/tutorials/). You can get great HDR images also in colors if you know what you are doing in photomatix… as a simple example here is one of my latest images, an HDR from 7 exposures: http://www.gallarotti.net/photoblog/p/109 – I’d love to know what you think about it…