iOS 4.1 Native HDR vs. "Pro HDR" comparison

[michael zaletel]

Man I hope EPIC can do this.


Left image is iOS4 default "HDR ON" and Right Image is default from "Pro HDR" which by the way is currently #31 on iTunes Paid Apps. Those guys will make more on this $1.99 App than, well, you know...


Clearly there are some issues to work out but what's crazy is that the Pro HDR image is exactly what my eye/mind was seeing at the time. Well, perhaps not quite so saturated but that's a setting you just move a slider for at the end. The halo effect is because I shot the two exposures handheld and moved a bit.

-michael zaletel

 

[michael zaletel]

You can also run Pro HDR on images in your photo library so someone could take two separate exposures (stills) with their RED and import them into iPhoto and sync with iPhone and run Pro HDR on the two. Would be cool to see what their software can do with high quality source material.

-michael z

 

[Andrew Wilding]

Well the first shot looks much, much, much, much, much, much better to me.

 

[Justin K Phillips]

I'm with Andrew. There have been a few situations where I liked the effect of overbaked HDR, this is not one of them.

 

[michael zaletel]

Missing the point. You can grade the 1st shot from the second but not the other way around. Again the saturation and halo is my bad not the app.

-michael zaletel

 

[scott william]

agree with Michael. average grade, but very exciting to have thay much DR.

 

[Justin K Phillips]

Missing the point. You can grade the 1st shot from the second but not the other way around.

Seems like the opposite from where I'm standing. Perhaps there is some confusion about the order of the images?

 

[Charles Angus]

Missing the point. You can grade the 1st shot from the second but not the other way around. Again the saturation and halo is my bad not the app.

-michael zaletel

You can make the first shot (with the deeper blacks and less saturation) look like the second, but you can't make that tone-mapped mess look like a real image. The haloing will never go away. (And it's not primarily from moving the camera - it's primarily from bad tone mapping).

The first image is clearly superior.

 

[michael zaletel]

You can make the first shot (with the deeper blacks and less saturation) look like the second, but you can't make that tone-mapped mess look like a real image. The haloing will never go away. (And it's not primarily from moving the camera - it's primarily from bad tone mapping).

The first image is clearly superior.

I've been retouching, color correcting and grading for 20 years. I respectfully disagree Charles. I'll post a better example of what Pro HDR can do.

An app doesn't reach 39th on App Store Best Seller at $1.99 for a feature that is built into iOS already unless people love it. The average consumer loves extended DR and oversaturation (consider food and travel commercials). Discussing HDR isn't about whether the "looks" generated are going to win awards and accolades among DP's but about being able to easily do something that has never even been possible before. Perhaps the reason most photographers and cinematographers dislike the look of saturated, extended range HDR is because they didn't grow up on it. That doesn't make it inferior, just different.

My point was you could never pull the detail out of the foreground elements under the umbrella on the ground if all you had to work with was the first shot on the left. The second shot could be made to look like the first with a window. The haloing actually is due to camera movement between exposures and the intense light surrounding the umbrella in the overexposed shot.

It always makes me crazy when people confuse art and popularity. They are typically inherently opposed. Does that mean the majority is wrong and the minority is right?

-michael zaletel

 

[Craig Parkes]

Does that mean the majority is wrong and the minority is right?

Generally, yes.

Because the majority are attracted to the new, and then quickly move from one new thing to the next, simply because it is new.

The minority (those who have spent both time and practice learning to appreciate both the old and the new) can make the old seem new again, whereas the majority only ever like something for it's newness and can't appreciate it's actual use.