If you have seen my flickr photostream, you should know that I go to a lot of car shows, and shoot almost all my shots in HDR. I am fortunate enough to live about 5 minutes from a weekly car show called Cars and Coffee here on the border of Las Vegas and Henderson. Just this past weekend, it was perfect weather with overcast skies but no sun – giving us a nice even light with no annoying bright sun ruining many angles. So here is one of my favorite shots from that day.

The Shoot
I carried my tripod that day, ensuring many stable auto-bracketed HDR sets. The lighting worked for almost any angle works because there is no sun to worry about. I set the tripod up behind this Mini Cooper S and fired off 3 shots with the Canon 5D and 17-40mm f/4 lens (essential for car shows and landscapes). Cars usually look good from the corner angles and given a bit of tilt to add perceived motion and aggressiveness. A shot from the ground (mouse-eye view) usually works good too, but this time I opted for eye-level looking down so you can see the top of the Mini. The deep metallic grey and double yellow lines really makes this particular Mini stand out, and I thought it would turn out well in HDR. You decide:

By pongky ©

The Processing
Since the AEB set of exposures were shot on a tripod, I didn’t have to check the “align images” box in Photomatix – thus reducing the merging time. I dragged it into Photomatix and made sure I adjusted the colors and exposure levels. Usually what I do in Photomatix is increase the gamma so that it looks slightly overexposed (maybe by half a stop) so that I can do more with it in Lightroom in terms of blacks and contrasts. I find this technique works very well. In Lightroom I cropped out all the useless background elements (which is why the roof is partially cut) and adjusted the tones and color saturation to get it to this point. I hope you like it – and if you are really interested, you can also have the AEB RAW files by downloading from here. Let me know if you use it and come up with another result!

Here is an amazing looking HDR imagery of a lake – with a very balanced exposure and composition to go along with pleasing, natural colors. Thank you John for the permission!

By Extra Medium

Sometimes we come across an image that’s obviously highly processed, yet it works, especially for this shot. Just check out the tones and reflections found on the side of this old car in a showroom.

By Michael Brooking Photography

HDR can be used to enhance interior spaces as well. As you can see, this scene of an old library has that unique visual quality that only an HDR processing could bring out.

By (Erik)

Landscapes with green grass, cloudy skies and water features usually transfer well into HDR. This shot is no exception – with excellent color balance, saturation and composition, this photo is a prime example of what makes HDR so popular.

By norcalphoto