Hand Held HDR

[garry23]

As some may have spotted, I've been exploring my hand held bracketing (HHB) options.

The main restriction with HHB is, of course, your slowest shutter speed. With a wide angle lens, where most of my HHB needs fall, you can get away with some slow shutters, eg down to, say, 1/20 or lower if you haven't been drinking :-)

The ML ETTR and Advanced Bracketing are two killer features.

First, ETTR will give me my base (highlight exposure), fit for my hand holding limit, say, 1/30s.

Then Advanced Bracketing, with Full ISO shifting gives me the 'best' chance of getting the shadows: all hand holding.

I set my Canon auto ISO range to a max of 6400 on my 5D3.

In the example below I set Advanced Bracketing to 3x3EV, and ETTR came in at 1/30s at ISO 200 (my base exposure).

Although using Advanced Bracketing in the 'simple' mode, I'm also seeing if I can script in some intelligence, ie multiple HHB sequences, according to where your base ETTR starts.

Anyway here is the result of today's HHB experiment:

[IDA_ML]

Excellent result, Garry23! Thank you for sharing!   Would you mind sharing also your post workflow?

[garry23]

@IDA_ML

My basic post workflow is simple:

1. Ingest into LR
2. Use LR HDR merge, because of the floating point 16 bit processing gives access to more LR slider range
3. Use LR/Enfuse
4. Compare both images and select one for further post processing in LR or PS
5. If going to PS I will take all brackets and the merged HDR and use luminosity masking

Cheers

Garry

[IDA_ML]

Thanks, Garry.  Keep up the good work!

[mmrocha]

First, thank you Garry . Second, sorry for my poor english. Usualy on posts yours comments have some vital informations. Like on the ETTR that you said about RAW EV histogram. My t2i always get out of range for AETTR, but with you RAW EV Histogram resolved my problem and it´s so easy and fast.

So, here are some thinking on Hand held HDR. Later will post the pics.

On camera
- Ajusted the expo ETTR so the histogram says ~-4.0 EV. Set ISO to 100. Then I put on 1/30 when I want to use silent.mo. Then ajust F. If still needed, and it will , ajust ISO.
- Turn Dual ISO ON, and set alternative ISO to +2EV
- On Advanced Bracketing, with Full ISO shifting, adjust 2x4EV and 0 + ++

With this, I think, I will get this ev diferences with two shots: 0EV -> 2EV (Dual ISO) -> 4EV (AB) -> 6EV (Dual ISO). You can play with the Dual iso and AB settings. Just remember that AB setting will be double of Dual ISO. Ex: if dual iso is +3EV AB shoud be 2x6EV. You can also take more shots, but since it´s hand held 2 and 4 exposures is ok for me.

Post Processing
- For dual iso processing use CR2HDR with no image processing (Just tried with full resolution).
- Use favorite soft for merging, I use enfuse
- if you wish, touch with your favorite program.

[mmrocha]

Here are the tests
In ALL pics the last one on the RIGHT is the final picture

2x4EV - dual iso - silent




3x4EV - dual iso - silent




3x4EV - dual iso



2x4EV - dual iso



4x2EV



Ax2EV

[garry23]

@mmrocha

There is also this post to read : https://www.magiclantern.fm/forum/index.php?topic=21602.0

Plus remember dual ISO comes with a little cost, As a1ex says:

Price to pay
- Half resolution in highlights and shadows
- Aliasing and moire - of course, in highlights an