[HDRI] Re: RAW capture

[Gregory J. Ward]

Hi Lisa,

What I've noticed in Photoshop CS2's "Merge to HDR" function is that  
they try to preserve some of the "character" of the original image.   
To do this, they would have to maintain the camera's tone curve,  
which is impossible if your goal is to obtain a scene-referred HDR  
result. In other words, they set conflicting goals for their process,  
and the result is something that satisfies neither goal very well.

I do HDR captures with my Olympus 4040 all the time, but I don't  
attempt to do stitching.  The biggest problem with non-SLR cameras is  
that they tend to suffer much more from lens flare, since their  
optics are not up to 35 mm standards.

-Greg

> From: "L.Yimm" <yimm at mac.com>
> Date: January 25, 2006 12:29:15 PM PST
> ...
> I also expect this is why CS2 is inferior in assembling HDRs to  
> Photosphere.   I recently ran a test with the same set of 5  
> panos...and the CS2 image was noticeably contrastier, with banding  
> in the extreme ends of the exposure.   Also the .hdr file size was  
> 4 MB smaller than the one generated in your app.
>
> It's taken me many months of trial and error...but I've finally got  
> an all OSX work flow that's reliable and repeatable.
>
> I capture 5 or more exposures at each of 6 positions around, using  
> a Nikon 5700 with FC-E9 full spherical fisheye.  I crop and de-warp  
> images in Photoshop (using a custom plug-in), then stitch in  
> Stitcher 4 (now 5), then put back the missing EXIF data and do the  
> finally assembly in Photosphere.
>
> Anyone else have experience using a non-SLR digital camera for HDR  
> capture?
>
> Lisa