Europe in HDR

[RyanF747]

Hey folks!
Here are a couple of my favorite shots from a recent vacation to Europe. These are in HDR, taken at 9mp and tone-mapped using Photomatix. Please feel free to be as nit-picky as can be! I wanna improve! Thank you.

[caleb]

The water & sky in the first one seems perfect, but the foreground is much less than perfect. It's dark and I can't make out what it is. The second one is amazing but needs rotating imo

[reidsprincess20028]

I think both is absolutly amazing! I love sunsets!

[Frog]

Welcome to the forums!
The second one looks pretty good but don't understand why you didn't expose for the foreground in the first. That's the purpose of hdr...to get good exposure throughout the shot and I don't see any evidence of it being used in the first.

[RyanF747]

Thanks for the replies!
The first photo, I had a lot of trouble with the foreground! The lighting was as terrible as my camera (an abused Fujifilm S9000) and pretty much all the higher exposure pictures were trash. I have a version with the foreground blacked out but I like it much less! There is some cool natural marble deposites in the foreground, so its a shame! Ill map the pictures some more and see if i can squeeze more detail out!
In the second one, I have a version thats leveled....but I kinda like the perspective angle too! So I was hoping to hear some opinions on that so thanks!
I appreciate the responses! Glad to join the forums! This seems like a great place, Ive already been doin a bit of reading haha

[OldClicker]

Be aware that, unless you 'attach' the images, 'first' and 'second' may not be the same to each viewer. For instance the dark foreground is the second one to me.

I like that, though they are very dramatic, they still look like they could be real. Nice shots and worthy of further work.

TF

[readingr]

Oh! that's interesting, On my monitor I have just the right amount of detail on the ground to make out the stones/marble and the bush. I find it difficult to believe that the dark one is HDR though.

I would consider cloning out the man made items that look like piping and chimney.

Appologies for being harsh on the Second but it looks like a near miss to me, the reason being that it all looks squashed in and no real object to look at. Perhaps if it was landscape instead of portrait it would help.

Roger R.

[jetrim]

These are both nice but I particularly like the blue one. The other really needs just a bit more foreground lighting (HDR or not)

[RyanF747]

Thanks for the responses! I was afraid the sunset image would be a near miss!
aw, I cant clone out the man-made objects in the sunset picture...thats an ancient greek temple on the hill! haha! There definetly is a lot going on in the darker picture that I wish I would have done a better job capturing. Ill see if I can cheat in some foreground detail in editing...but for next time, use a flash? Or maybe just a better camera that can handle high exposure in low light without causing excessive noise!
If you would like to see these images in a larger format to see better detail;

http://ryanfinley.carbonmade.com/projects/2428692#4 <
http://ryanfinley.carbonmade.com/projects/2428692#10 <

[Frog]

Detail shows much better in the large pics, especially for the sunset, but still not enough.

[Don Schaeffer]

The second one really impresses me. I reallythink you have to dodfge in the shadow for the first one to work.

[mpetrie]

For the first one, the dark areas are pretty dark (however, my laptop monitor is dark all the time so that might make it look darker than it really is. As for the blue one, I love it but agree with some of the comments below. Needs a little counter-clockwise rotating and could also use a foreground. But nice work! Take my advice for what it's worth... a grain of salt. LOL I'm brand new to this stuff.

[mattb]

I'll jump on the bandwagon and say the foreground seems too dark to me in the first one too.
The second (blue) one works very well but needs to be straightened. If you are going for the tilted look (which needs to be used in moderation) I think you need to be more tilted - this just looks like you couldn't get it quite level.