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  • Hey all, just changed over the backend after 15 years I figured time to give it a bit of an update, its probably gonna be a bit weird for most of you and i am sure there is a few bugs to work out but it should kinda work the same as before... hopefully :)

HDR video

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Robert Andriessen

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So here's an attempt at HDR with a short interview, the goal was to get the window as well as the speaker. It's almost there but maybe HDR isn't suitable for this kind of video. it was shot at +6 stops 3k 24 fps
Perhaps shooting it at less stops difference would be better so there's not such an extreme difference between the light to merge.



https://vimeo.com/39927467
 
You could have used a white reflector and gotten a much nicer result without HDR (and with the benefit of eye lights) or chosen another background. The HDR process is cool, but it attacks specular highlights the same as it attacks other overexposed areas so you lose all your "sheen" on skin tones, like shooting through a polarizer--takes the life out of the subject and not appropriate for CUs or portraiture.
 
we travelled light, so I did not have any extra lights or reflectors. The background was extremely bright (end of afternoon sun) but there were only TL lights at around 3500K. There wasn't much choice for background in this particular scene due to time constraints. A reflector wouldn't have a been enough as the light coming in the room wasn't that bright.
 
It beats being blown out white. Gift horses and mouths and all that.

The posted reflector idea would have made little difference to this scenario if your interior to exterior was 6 stops different. Frankly I'm amazed it looks as well as it does.
 
Agree to disagree. I think the skin looks terrible with HDR. Highlight rolloff is okay, artificially desaturated but better than without HDR. A viable solution but not without significant compromises. Backing up the talent (diffuse light through windows works following inverse square with the window itself as aperture, thus fall off is very fast relative to direct sunlight) and using a bright reflector (beadboard, mirror board) would have a significant impact and you'd get an eyesight, which lets you underexpose the face further since the eyes still read, underexpose the face a bit more than that and give it a power window and you're done--though you would still lose some highlight detail relative to HDR, sure. Anyhow it works, but there's no free lunch...for a glamor shoot the lack of sheen would end things, in this case the compromise is fine, just not ideal.
 
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Nothing wrong with it. Considering the circumstances of know lights,know reflectors and a huge contrast location you had to shoot in.
You did very well.

Thank goodness for HDR.
You used the tools you had to get the best you could. That's what it's .

Matt is being way to hard on you.
 
I think you did pretty good. Another scenario is this... since the camera is locked off, you could have shot the talent with blown out to white background, then shoot a few seconds of the background without talent, and bingo, an easy comp. Now thinking out loud your A track might look like that... In any case, a simple blend rarely looks good. The two tracks need to be composited carefully. This is just my experience.
 
I'm coming across all wrong here. Venting frustration with HDR, not this shot. I suppose this is a fine solution, maybe the best one given the circumstances and the angle of sun, and it worked fine; complementing it with a reflector and taking HDR down a bit might have been better, but no big deal--just kind of bummed out by the effect of HDR on skin since this is the first time I have seen it in a CU, but that's a whole other topic and in this case it really doesn't matter that much since it's not a "glossy" shoot. It looks pretty good, especially given the situation.

But it does make you think about why the ring light/Briese look is so popular for hip hop videos and soft high key light plus post contrast kills it for fashion... There's some magic to high contrast plus huge specular highlights.
 
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I'm not sure if the skin tones would change. However, it may look muddy using blends. If you're nitpicking, I'd say the colour temperature is mismatched. Nothing that still can't be corrected in post. More importantly the OP got the talking head shot in a short amount of time.
 
Not knowing what the original A frame and X frame looked like, I would expect more from this shot, as in you should be able to get more from your background, but that's simply a guess. Any chance we could see a frame grab of both the A and X frames?

I posted an HDRx clip in another thread, here is the comparison of the A and X frames and then the composited image: http://web.me.com/phelanx/Example/BooHDRx.html

It was shot with +4 stops, 24fps, 800ISO, 5K 2:1.
 
Very possibly. I really took an educated guess at what exposure I thought would work. There is actually more information in the "negative" to use, but we decided it was good enough for the project. That is the beauty of the HDRx option, it allows you to dial in one way or the other, depending on your mood or preference. Very flexible. I will say emphatically that there is no way I could have reached this by myself in RCX as it stands now. LightIron was able to take both streams into the Pablo and bend them backwards and forwards to get the desired effect. Hopefully updated versions of RCX will improve on this.
 
Mark Phelan said:
Very possibly. I really took an educated guess at what exposure I thought would work. There is actually more information in the "negative" to use, but we decided it was good enough for the project. That is the beauty of the HDRx option, it allows you to dial in one way or the other, depending on your mood or preference. Very flexible. I will say emphatically that there is no way I could have reached this by myself in RCX as it stands now. LightIron was able to take both streams into the Pablo and bend them backwards and forwards to get the desired effect. Hopefully updated versions of RCX will improve on this.
Click to expand...

Well, definitely impressive work. I'm still trying to wrap my head around how HDRx can help with our ultra low-budget productions that don't always have time/money for proper lighting, but can afford to spend time grading. I'm trying to figure out if just leaving HDRx +3 on most shots would help or hinder.

UPDATE: We have an Epic-X, so we can use +3 HDRx all the time unless we have extreme slow motion to do.
 
Erich Ocean said:
Well, definitely impressive work. I'm still trying to wrap my head around how HDRx can help with our ultra low-budget productions that don't always have time/money for proper lighting, but can afford to spend time grading. I'm trying to figure out if just leaving HDRx +3 on most shots would help or hinder.

UPDATE: We have an Epic-X, so we can use +3 HDRx all the time unless we have extreme slow motion to do.
Click to expand...

No, you would not want to leave it on for most shots for many reasons, one being data management, the files would be double in size.
 
I finally figure out that the man is planting trees in this little box. Looks like a trencher / treeplanter combo unit in a clear cut area. Makes me wonder more about the story, looks like it is set in the southern hemisphere.

So Light Iron did the mix of HDR footage? What program was used for this blend?

Mark Phelan said:
Not knowing what the original A frame and X frame looked like, I would expect more from this shot, as in you should be able to get more from your background, but that's simply a guess. Any chance we could see a frame grab of both the A and X frames?

I posted an HDRx clip in another thread, here is the comparison of the A and X frames and then the composited image: http://web.me.com/phelanx/Example/BooHDRx.html

It was shot with +4 stops, 24fps, 800ISO, 5K 2:1.
Click to expand...
 
Hey everyone thanks for all the feedback, again a bounce would not have worked at all. The light difference is far greater then what you see in the video, and I have a power mask on the talent (prince of the kingdom of the Netherlands, working hard at the EU) to fill in post.

I was glad to have the HDR function, because shooting any other direction in the office would have been really boring. But it's so new, I really have to try more different situations and see what works best.

@Enrique I used a simple blend, the contrast was so big that magic motion made the face way too dark, so maybe that setting is more suited to subtle highlight tones and more movement. I do have parts of the face that have a little ghosting, but I can live with that. I just love the idea I can shoot impossible shots. This would kill any other camera in terms of dynamic range and also degrade the image because of it.

@Bob, I would also have needed a moving mask because the talent is not standing still. But it's a good idea for some situations for sure. I could have used some tracking for the mask.

Today I'm off to Sweden for a totally different docu shoot for a new lighting company. And I have a big problem already, because of the easter weekend, all lights in rental houses in my town and in Stockholm are rented out! Bought the biggest practical lights I could find (couple of 100Ws), will use silks and maybe bounce to fill in my talent and the limited edition lamps made out of a smoke filled soap bubble. And start shooting early to have some natural light at least. Stills from the shoot will also be used as press photos! go dsmc
 
Actually I would love to have a curve HDR mixer, but I believe this has been mentioned before.
my RCX has a big batch in it, so I took this A-frame grab from the quicktime preview.
 

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we have a 4 part series on this in INFOTECH, and I STILL think we have not covered it enough.. I cannot stress how tricky good HDR is.. And also that there is no one technique to getting it right.. You need to practice (As you are doing VERY WELL) and learn what to apply on a shot by shot basis.

You said one thing that's dead on.. It's very possible to use TOO Much highlight protection. Be careful of that.. I find that beyond 3 stops is problematic.
 
Mark Toia said:
Nothing wrong with it. Considering the circumstances of know lights,know reflectors and a huge contrast location you had to shoot in.
You did very well.

Thank goodness for HDR.
You used the tools you had to get the best you could. That's what it's .

Matt is being way to hard on you.
Click to expand...

+1

And it's really hard for any of us to judge much unless you post images from the two tracks for comparison. +6 stops is quite a bit, you may have been able to pull it off with +3, but there's no way to tell from this blended video alone.

Skin tones are definitely something that are hard to hold when you have different lights clashing. *IF* you have the time and desire to explore more refined color correction on something like this, you can always grade the tracks separately to match your intended color targets, then blend according to difference and luma masks.
 
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