Is HDR another gimmick?

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BIGBERNARDBRESSLAW

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I like my tv to have natural colours, so I can't quite get my head around HDR. To me, it seems that it's just going to improve the brightness of the screen and make colours more vivid, therefore more unnatural. Am I wrong?
 
I only know about 'HDR' in stills photography where the results speak volumes ...

clicky

I don't know what it will look like in terms of television, but I have a bad feeling it's going to be the visual equivalent of 'The Loudness Wars' where everyone tries to outdo everyone else.
 
chebby said:
I only know about 'HDR' in stills photography where the results speak volumes ...

clicky

I don't know what it will look like in terms of television, but I have a bad feeling it's going to be the visual equivalent of 'The Loudness Wars' where everyone tries to outdo everyone else.

The images look more striking, but are they more natural? I think some people will definitely be happier with a HDR picture, my Dad certainly will, but I'm not convinced it'll be anything other than garish.
 
BIGBERNARDBRESSLAW said:
chebby said:
I only know about 'HDR' in stills photography where the results speak volumes ...

clicky

I don't know what it will look like in terms of television, but I have a bad feeling it's going to be the visual equivalent of 'The Loudness Wars' where everyone tries to outdo everyone else.

The images look more striking, but are they more natural? I think some people will definitely be happier with a HDR picture, my Dad certainly will, but I'm not convinced it'll be anything other than garish.

The idea seems to be that the image will contain more 'dynamic range' than a traditional image (or the eye's view of the original scene) can handle. Simplistically you expose multiple times (for shadow detail and mid tones and highlights) and then 'merge' all the exposures into one image that contains everything.

It sounds like a good idea but I haven't seen any good results yet. Even the more 'conservative' applications of the technique look 'muddy' to me.

As you say, plenty of folk will love all the 'candy colour' effects but I hope it doesn't get over-applied.
 
Chebby, in photography people tend to confuse "tone mapping" with extending the dynamic range. Tone mapping is what gives the peculiar look that HDR is known for. When HDR is done right, it looks like nothing has been done at all. More shadow detail, more highlight detail, but importantly realistic tones.

BBB, HDR exist because the human eye can see a wider range of lights to darks than either current tv or most digital sensors can reproduce. Have you ever taken a photo on a digital camera and to the naked eye you see lots of subtle shades of whites and greys in the clouds, yet on the screen you only see a solid lump of white? Even worse, when you see a blue sky but it shows up as white on the camera?

A digital sensor with a wide dynamic range can record this data, but we need brighter screens to reproduce this data. If we don't have brighter screens, the TV needs to crush the dynamic range to fit the display causing weird tones.
 
Paul. said:
Chebby, in photography people tend to confuse "tone mapping" with extending the dynamic range. Tone mapping is what gives the peculiar look that HDR is known for.  When HDR is done right, it looks like nothing has been done at all.  More shadow detail, more highlight detail, but importantly realistic tones.

BBB, HDR exist because the human eye can see a wider range of lights to darks than either current tv or most digital sensors can reproduce.  Have you ever taken a photo on a digital camera and to the naked eye you see lots of subtle shades of whites and greys in the clouds, yet on the screen you only see a solid lump of white?  Even worse, when you see a blue sky but it shows up as white on the camera?

A digital sensor with a wide dynamic range can record this data, but we need brighter screens to reproduce this data.  If we don't have brighter screens, the TV needs to crush the dynamic range to fit the display causing weird tones.
Couldn't have put it better.

It's the HDR that's going to make a much bigger difference to the picture than 4K resolution IMO.
 
Paul. said:
Chebby, in photography people tend to confuse "tone mapping" with extending the dynamic range. Tone mapping is what gives the peculiar look that HDR is known for. When HDR is done right, it looks like nothing has been done at all. More shadow detail, more highlight detail, but importantly realistic tones.

BBB, HDR exist because the human eye can see a wider range of lights to darks than either current tv or most digital sensors can reproduce. Have you ever taken a photo on a digital camera and to the naked eye you see lots of subtle shades of whites and greys in the clouds, yet on the screen you only see a solid lump of white? Even worse, when you see a blue sky but it shows up as white on the camera?

A digital sensor with a wide dynamic range can record this data, but we need brighter screens to reproduce this data. If we don't have brighter screens, the TV needs to crush the dynamic range to fit the display causing weird tones.

Sometimes I want shadows to be dark and highlights to be light ...

2645881538_febbc4228c_o.jpg


(Spot-metered from a small stone area just under the window.)
 
As an example, here are two photos before and after an extention of dynamic range. This is not using multiple exposure, this is by manipulating the exposures in the highlights and shadows but it visualises the point.

25479511410_b4bf8767ea_b.jpg


15596445602_23f4f20e57_b.jpg


The tones remain similar, but more shadow information and more highlight information is available. Hope this helps.
 
Paul. said:
As an example, here are two photos before and after an extention of dynamic range. This is not using multiple exposure, this is by manipulating the exposures in the highlights and shadows but it visualises the point.

The tones remain similar, but more shadow information and more highlight information is available. Hope this helps.

It demonstrates the point but I prefer image 1. It looks more natural.
 
I'm not convinced. I get the point about a digital camera not reflecting in the photo what I could see with my eye, and looking at some of the comparison images on the net, the cloud formations looks quite stunning with HDR, but I'm not convinced that the final result won't be garish and unnatural.
 
chebby said:
Paul. said:
As an example, here are two photos before and after an extention of dynamic range. This is not using multiple exposure, this is by manipulating the exposures in the highlights and shadows but it visualises the point.

The tones remain similar, but more shadow information and more highlight information is available. Hope this helps.

It demonstrates the point but I prefer image 1. It looks more natural.

Image 2 is how it looked when I was there, my eye did not see clipped highlights in the cloud.
 
BIGBERNARDBRESSLAW said:
I'm not convinced. I get the point about a digital camera not reflecting in the photo what I could see with my eye, and looking at some of the comparison images on the net, the cloud formations looks quite stunning with HDR, but I'm not convinced that the final result won't be garish and unnatural.

I would ignore HDR photography full stop, it is a missnomer and not the same thing as with TVS. HDR photography is an artistic tool, its not used to create a more realsistic image.

"Wide dynamic range" would be a more accurate term.
 

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