[Leica] HDRitis?

[Howard Ritter]

I think “professor” is the operative word here. Professors of art are a species unto themselves.

As far as HDR goes, my humble opinion is that if you can tell HDR was applied, it’s too much. I’ve seen it applied judiciously (and used it myself) to make a photo more appealing, usually by bringing out shadows. But I back off when it’s apparent that I’ve used it.

OTOH, my son is a budding professional real-estate photographer. He shares my disdain for obvious HDR in anything else, but what we would regard as excessive HDR can work quite well as a service, not an esthetic, in real-estate photography when massaging an interior image, especially one with bright windows, even more especially if there’s an attractive view, in order to show all details in more or less the way that they would be perceived in person. Interesting how the awesome real-time dynamic range of the human visual mechanism gives us a perfectly normal-appearing (because it IS normal) view of a natural HDR scene, while an HDR’ed digital image of the same scene, capturing the same dynamic range, is off-putting to most of (all of?) us.

—howard


> On Aug 5, 2015, at 5:23 PM, Tina Manley <tmanley at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> I spoke at a camera club last night.  There were about 50 people there.
> There was a member spotlight section before my presentation with lots of
> HDR - over the top - photos.  It's garish to me and I hope it's a fad that
> fades soon.  Even worse was one guy who showed a photo of a gravestone -
> tilted horizon, top of angel cut off - and said that it worked and was a
> wonderful photo because he went up to the gravestone and asked permission
> to take its photo.  Then after he took one photo - he only needed one
> because he knew it was perfect - he thanked the gravestone and walked
> away.  This was a guy who has been a photographer professor. I just don't
> get it at all.
> 
> Tina
> 
> On Wed, Aug 5, 2015 at 5:03 PM, Lew Schwartz <lew1716 at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
>> I'm checking out a few camera clubs in the vicinity of my new home and I'm
>> distresed by what I see as the overuse of the hdr look. Maybe it's old
>> fogey me, but I find it nightmarish & oppressive.  How's it look to the LUG
>> dudes?
>> 
>> _______________________________________________
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>> 
> 
> 
> 
> -- 
> Tina Manley
> www.tinamanley.com
> tina-manley.artistwebsites.com
> http://www.alamy.com/stock-photography/3B49552F-90A0-4D0A-A11D-2175C937AA91/Tina+Manley.html
> 
> _______________________________________________
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