Aerial HDR

[DennyR]

The Nex-7 has a nice HDR feature and the Zen can hold the camera steady enough to take three exposures without any problem but the Zen does not trigger the camera in HDR mode so you need a separate release. Just curious if anyone has a third party remote that can work the HDR mode.:tennis:
Aerial HDR looks great but not easy to do.

 

[DucktileMedia]

Denny, I would think with your knowledge you would have done some aerial HDR panoramas in 3d by now.

Cant you just set it to HDR mode and use the gentled?

 

[Droider]

Yuri you are lkimited to the auto mode with the IR trigger.

Denny

I threw a little carbon frame with a trigger servo that depressed the camera button with worked fine but I never did anything with it as I bought the 550D.

I have seen a beautiful little machined one on the MK WIKI somewhere.. Ill try and remember where it was. If you search for posts by me on that site you will see I asked the question about it but not sure if I go an answer or not. PM sent with MK username

Dave

 

[J.T.]

I had a try at aerial HDR using the cheating method as an experiment. It kind of works I suppose.

 

[Stacky]

Denny if you shoot raw you can get a close to hdr with just one exposure. You open 3 versions of it in raw, each version with an adjustment to the exposure and then you comp the 3 together. Its not the best way but it will do a job thats good enough to fool 90% of the people.

 

[Aviator]

Denny if you shoot raw you can get a close to hdr with just one exposure. You open 3 versions of it in raw, each version with an adjustment to the exposure and then you comp the 3 together. Its not the best way but it will do a job thats good enough to fool 90% of the people.

Thats the way I do it.. Gets some really good results

 

[DennyR]

Thanks guys, Yes no problem with my own trigger but I wanted to save some weight and use the Zen trigger. It's not a problem with the Zen it is that the Nex-7 does not want to work with the remote trigger in HDR.

The best time for great HDR is just before it gets dark IMHO. I want the shadow detail without blowing out the lights. Nice part about the Nex-7 is that it does quite a nice merge in camera.

Yuri Yes panos I have all over the place. My best seller of all time is Above Nicosia. it was shot in three sections as verticals and stitched with PS. The hardest part was flying for about an hour to get onsite when the weather was (all the 9's) i.e. better than 10 K vis. And to do that when the authorities had given the permission. (Took 5 attempts) It was shot at 3500 feet from a Cessna but could have been done with my TDR these days. In Cyp. the only time you get that is after a storm in the spring time, after that, the haze can be less that 1-2 k. due to the humidity.

In the UK my full size activities were badly compromised by the fact that in a typical year you get only 20 really good days. Crystal clear air is not something that you can take for granted in most countries in my experience. Far less of a problem at lower MR levels.

 

[FerdinandK]

@DennyR

Did you try to activate "Object Tracking"?

best regards

Ferdinand

 

[DennyR]

@Ferdinand
I did not, isn't that a Sony focus thing? I always shoot in manual focus locked just a bit back from infinity. I cant afford to have it start hunting in the middle of a shot.

I had proper auto object tracking on my own DR-7 camera mount but it is too big for MR use. The license to use the code is 6 figs. I have it but it will never go into production. DJI will do it for peanuts before long.

When one considers what can be done with a GoPro-3 it follows that the days of Red epics and similar for aerial work are going to be numbered. The die hard cinamatographers will use one tool in-close and anything that moves will go another way. We don't need shallow DoF or non breathing zoom lenses. etc.

 

[FerdinandK]

Just tried it on my Z15, it does not help, sorry, but at least you can use the DRO (dynamic range optimization).

For areal work the object tracking works nice for fotos and videos with the 24mm Sonnar, there is no "hunting", but it depends on the lens. On e.g. the Sigma 19mm every tool related to the Autofocus is unuseable.

if you have a look at this video from 1:45 to 2:00, you can see how the object-tracking works (together with the autofocus):

https://vimeo.com/55605317

best regards

Ferdinand

 

[DennyR]

Interesting machine, how much does it weigh.

 

[Bartman]

this brings up a question I've always had but never asked.....

if you shoot in RAW mode can't you manufacture three different exposures of the same pic using the RAW data? with that you can do the HDR image

Bart

 

[redridinghood]

Usually a CCD or a CMOS sensor are able to capture 6-8 stops of dynamic range. Having the data in RAW format helps with many things like color balance, noise reduction etc but it will not add any more dynamic range to the image. A true HDR image taken from 3 shots has 3 times as many dynamic f-stops as a normal image.

 

[FerdinandK]

The typical HDR-programms can also handle (single) RAW images, you do not need to create different exposures of a single image (if you use some of these programs), but of course better if you can get an image-row (here again best if that row is taken in RAW format).

@DennyR
The copter (without battery) is 3200gr,

best regards

Ferdinand

 

[DennyR]

this brings up a question I've always had but never asked.....

if you shoot in RAW mode can't you manufacture three different exposures of the same pic using the RAW data? with that you can do the HDR image

Bart

The human eye can see about 14 EV's in dynamic range and your camera can only see 8-9 in a single exposure. Night aerials are far more spectacular if shot in HDR +2 0 -2 When I pioneered night aerials about 25 years ago I used neg. film which has a better dynamic range but sadly not the ISO speeds that you can get with digital.
Shooting raw with your digital camera will prevent clipping at the ends of the range and allow you to have greater control of your image but it will not recover burnt highlights or see beyond the light sensitivity of the base exposure.

There are several digital workflow programs that allow you to enhance your raw images but for those Photoshop die-hards that want to get a fairly good representation of what you saw in the viewfinder heres a simple and effective way that is used in publishing.
Open your image and then go to Image/ Adjustement/ Levels then select each of the RGB channels in turn and squeeze the side sliders up against the graph This will color balance and set the brightness level fairly accurately.

You can also work in CMYK with this method if you are a budding publisher. Once you start up this road then you need to understand color profiles and monitor calibration. Quark Express/InDesign PDF files etc.

But proper HDR can only be done with three or more exposures and merged. I know some pros who use 6.