Outstanding HDR Night Pictures

Ok, you guys have already noticed that we're totally in love with HDR. And that little group among you who doesn't like, we are trying our best to make you love it! Today's series: Night scenes!

We understand how critic some people can get when it comes to HDR... some will say it's not photography, some will say it's too surreal, but nonetheless, it's ART. Here's is a little selection I've made of outstading HDR night pictures. I hope you all like it.

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Hello, everyone! I'm Paulo, a 24 years old designer from Porto Alegre, Brazil. I work as a webdesigner since 2006, but websites and blogs have been a hobbie for me since 1999. At Abduzeedo, I try to bring only the hot stuff for you guys... and hope that all of you enjoy my posts! Cheers!

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@ lafkaj:
Ah well, like me, not all is expose to information, or many do understand what potentially unpredictable impact it would make to all civilizations to just change so many resources that better nature around. Artificial/human creativity or natural, got to be admired as equal, life is more interesting with verity! Regardless, your ideas to support nature are very noble lafkaj! But I know we can't speak for people's points of view or place a negative judgmental view on other forms of beauty as a way to make a point; most people would usually just feel negative to that. ;)

I think it's massively complicated, but the reasons for any pollution or any sort of major problem against nature (or the world) aren't simple and/or black and white; it's going to take small universally set positive influences at a time to fix.

-----

WELL I better get on topic before I get smacked by admin power! xD

It's so adventuresome knowing a new type of art is growing, created by camera and computer. (I'm a newbie to this haha!) These images are amazing... While I understand some may say it's too surreal, it's like this style is a mix of the actual place plus feel of the persons mind when being there, visualized into an image; it's like the positive idealism you see in a painting of a scene, produced from a photo!

Much thanks Paulo for sharing this! And well I suppose with any new form of art, it's going to receive a lot of critics, same thing happened with the history of computerized instruments in music about 30 years ago, but now it's everywhere! I hope I can get enough money for my new camera soon and look more into HDR style!

Learning-Lotus's picture
Learning-Lotus (not verified) 08/11/2008

It's pretty pathetic that in any of these pictures you can't see any stars because of all the light pollution. No wonder our world is headed for doom because people would prefer artificial beauty over natural beauty.

lafkaj's picture
lafkaj (not verified) 07/07/2008

Damn.

These pics are realy cool.
2 / 6 & 8 are great. The rest also but those 3 are top :-)

Andreas's picture
Andreas (not verified) 07/07/2008

Damn.

These pics are realy cool.
2 / 6 & 8 are great. The rest also but those 3 are top :-)

Andreas's picture
Andreas (not verified) 07/07/2008

@Rainshine, I believe photomatix's demo version is fully featured, it just puts some watermarks on your picture. So you can fully see your pic outcome, you just have to deal with a couple of words on your pic... :)

adijr's picture
adijr (not verified) 06/18/2008

são imagens de games isso?
ANIMAL!!!! Muito bom!

Felipe Spina's picture
Felipe Spina (not verified) 06/17/2008

I LOVE these! I just wish that there was some sort of free program to make HDR images, so I could make some. The demos for the professional programs just don't quite have the exporting and tools that the full versions have, so I can't make any real nice looking hdr images. Of course, mine would never be as good as the ones in this post...

Rainshine's picture
Rainshine (not verified) 06/16/2008

splendid :D
amzing!

Dy™'s picture
Dy™ (not verified) 06/14/2008

Thanks for the shots. I shot a harley rider last week and did the HDR thing

Ken
http://kblawson.wordpress.com/

Ken's picture
Ken (not verified) 06/14/2008

There are many tutorials out there, to be honest it's a challenge of sorting through them rather than finding one.

staying on the same site...
http://abduzeedo.com/how-create-hdr-photos-hdrphotomatix-tutorial

Here's one people point to:
http://flickr.com/photos/audunbakkeandersen/1623320388/

I can't say I used either of these, but maybe they'll get you started...

adijr's picture
adijr (not verified) 06/13/2008

These are beautifull... HDR is the future so it seems...

Is there someone who has some good tutorials about HDR...

Pelardo's picture
Pelardo (not verified) 06/13/2008

@Cameron
A few things go towards how I shoot my images. Firstly the tripod is normally not at full height, I go for low and sturdy on long exposures plus I always use the remote release ( £9 from Ebay ) to avoid camera shake of my heavy hands. If I don't have my release I would use self timer mode even just the 2 second delay works for me. As for ISO depends what I'm shooting with with the Canon 40D 200iso gives me a nice range to play with while avoiding the noise but even on the G9 this is too much at night so im way down at 80iso .

@Brendon
HDR is open to interpretation as to how you use it. One of the problems you'll find when doing night shots is that a lot of the time you'll "halo" out around lights and you have to make a choice to expose the lights correctly at the expense of something else ( see example below of blown sky - top right ) , so I no longer compromise I tend to generate 3 or 4 HDR's of the same image getting each section right and then blend.

PS : I'm not a fan of one RAW processing as IMHO you are fudging the image by trying to create data that wasn't originally recorded.

Getting It Wrong - See Top Right for badly blended sky
Greenwich Decay in HDR

Lee C's picture
Lee C (not verified) 06/13/2008

@cameron - If the tripods are stretched all the way (tall and wide), it can dangle in the wind, especially if it has a monopod @ the top. I read somewhere that closing the tripod as much as you can will help - so if you shoot with the tripod in its minimal position it may be much more stable (though obviously nowhere near as tall). Another thing can be that the mirror movement can create microshakes - so even with a timer you can have a problem, in theory.
Look up 'mirror lock' usage... I haven't used either of these, I mostly just avoid the wind and open the aperture as much as I can in some cases... :)

adijr's picture
adijr (not verified) 06/13/2008

First off, thank you very much for the include (8th pic)

These pictures are truly amazing. Wonderful Selection!

Keep up the HDR posts :)

adijr's picture
adijr (not verified) 06/13/2008

@Scott it's not really that. I get camera shake from wind. I always use a timer but wind moves camera. I'll figure it out. Off to Downtown L.A for a shoot tomorrow night.

www.abduzeedo.com

Cameron's picture
Cameron 06/12/2008

These are just inspiring, are they photography? I don't know it's just art. I like the surrealness. It's looking at the same old world in a new way

Sketchee's picture
Sketchee (not verified) 06/12/2008

Exactly! Sometimes when people create the HDR images they destroy their images and get a result that looks accidental and uncontrolled. I think that these examples show a great control over the technique.

@ Cameron:
I'm not a photographer but I have read that using a timer helps with camera shake as you are not touching the camera as the photo is taken. Also my dad's old film camera has an attachment that is like a chord with a button that lets you take a picture without touching the camera - if your shooting film that is.

Scott's picture
Scott (not verified) 06/12/2008

Amazing images. So beautiful.

Zim's picture
Zim (not verified) 06/12/2008

I didn't shoot it! I'm just linking it! ;)

paulo's picture
paulo 06/12/2008

WWWOOOWWW!
It's amazing!!!
The second photo it's like a GTA game.
Stunning colors and contrasts. AWESOME.
Paulo, amazing shoot.

Léo's picture
Léo (not verified) 06/12/2008

Ah, thank you, Guav, I didn't know that (or just completely forgot). Thanks!

Brendon Koz's picture
Brendon Koz (not verified) 06/12/2008

Brendon, you can also generate an HDR image from a single RAW file, since a RAW file can be "developed" at different exposures. It's not necessarily the best way to do it—the results from multiple separate photos are generally better—but of course it's the only way to make an HDR of a moving scene.

Guav's picture
Guav (not verified) 06/12/2008

I'm somewhat curious. I'm seeing all of these action (still images caught in motion - fast shutter) shots that are "HDR". I thought true HDR photos use multiple shots of the same image with different settings to achieve a merged photo (with altered settings, of course, depending on the shot and desired effect). Many of the recent HDR photos shown here, however, seem to be of a single, non-merged exposure. Are they truly HDR, or are they photoshop produced mimics?

Brendon Koz's picture
Brendon Koz (not verified) 06/12/2008

Here's my entry :)

From My Bathroom Window

Guav's picture
Guav (not verified) 06/12/2008

Great stuff!

b4it's picture
b4it (not verified) 06/12/2008

Lee RULES!!! His XMP's helped me so much. As well as his videos. Thanks Lee. Just wondering what ISO and shutter speed are you at. Whenever i shoot at 100 with a 30" shutter speed i get camera shake, even while it's on the tripod. And when i shoot at ISO 1600 i get really bad noise. And i know ISO 100 equals 400 as far as noise goes in HDR. Do you have any tips?

www.abduzeedo.com

Cameron's picture
Cameron 06/12/2008

Geez, Lee... those are truly beautiful. :)

paulo's picture
paulo 06/12/2008

Whooop another subject I can contribute too :)

From Hong Kong last month !

Wan Chai - Hong Kong

and this one which really needs a good ful viewing ( so click it )

Epic HK Edit

Lee C's picture
Lee C (not verified) 06/12/2008

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