HDR..bad! NATURAL..good!...or not?

[Dee_Phoenix]

I'm new to the site so excuse me if there's been a similar post here in the past and also if I'm posting in an incorrect location, this is a question that's been bugging me for a while now and i needed some help, voila HELP section!

What i wanted to know is, with regards to competitions (like APOY for example) from the judges POV, does HDR imagery have less preference than natural imagery?

I did have a look at some of the previous competitions but didnt find a lot of HDR work, and the ones i did find, were awarded considerably lesser points than the natural imagery.

Any thoughts and ideas would be very much welcome.

Thanks

Dee

[Zou]

My feeling is that if you can see it is HDR, it's probably not good. When it all starts to look cartoon-y or there are halos around edges I think there is no merit in the technique. If it is done well, you just have a longer range of tones and better small detail.

[El_Sid]

I would say it's a matter of the judges personal preference/prejudice and the 'look' of the image.

It is possible to produce HDR images that look natural and these probably don't get spotted. Equally ones processed to look like they are deliberately unnatural probably stand a chance of being accepted on their own merits - though a lot will depend on how anti digital manipulation the judge is.

Where judges are likely to be less forgiving are those HDR images which simply look like they've been processed with an HDR program and then presented 'as is' with no further attempt at presenting a more natural range of tone and contrast - leaving them with that very odd appearance where the shadows, midtones and highlights are far too equal in luminosity when the brain knows they oughtn't be...

[Fen]

What i wanted to know is, with regards to competitions (like APOY for example) from the judges POV, does HDR imagery have less preference than natural imagery?

I did have a look at some of the previous competitions but didnt find a lot of HDR work, and the ones i did find, were awarded considerably lesser points than the natural imagery.

Perhaps those images didn't fit the brief for the competition and so scored lower than ones that did fit the brief?

So many factors in judging that I don't think you can put it down to being a HDR photo or not.

[Dee_Phoenix]

I agree with what you guys have mentioned and thanks for taking the time to help clear the issue...BUT..yes, but there's still this nagging feeling.

for example, 2 equally awesome images, they both fit the criteria/brief - one HDR and one natural. In that case, the decision is totally left to the judges. At that point, does the fact that a judge could be of purist nature be a disadvantage to the HDR and vice versa?

Maybe my underlying question/concern is what kind of judges are the ones that grade APOY? I have not seen an HDR image as a winner of any rounds.

[ermintrude]

Maybe my underlying question/concern is what kind of judges are the ones that grade APOY? I have not seen an HDR image as a winner of any rounds.

Or maybe it was done so well you couldnt tell?

[Dee_Phoenix]

hehe, yes indeed Ermin but surely the judges are eagle-eyed pro's

[ermintrude]

hehe, yes indeed Ermin but surely the judges are eagle-eyed pro's

Ahhhh but you said *you* hadnt "seen an HDR image as a winner of any rounds". Or are you an eagled pro?

[Fen]

hehe, yes indeed Ermin but surely the judges are eagle-eyed pro's

Damo?

[Clodhopper]

I agree with what you guys have mentioned and thanks for taking the time to help clear the issue...BUT..yes, but there's still this nagging feeling.

for example, 2 equally awesome images, they both fit the criteria/brief - one HDR and one natural. In that case, the decision is totally left to the judges. At that point, does the fact that a judge could be of purist nature be a disadvantage to the HDR and vice versa?

Maybe my underlying question/concern is what kind of judges are the ones that grade APOY? I have not seen an HDR image as a winner of any rounds.

How do you know that the image that isn't obviously HDR is "natural"? As has already been said, if it's been done well, you shouldn't be able to spot anything obvious.
Most of my images were mangled beyond recognition, and not particularly well in some cases But the judges are looking at the final image, the end result, presumably without knowing how you arrived at that result.

Digital manipulation is a thorny subject for some, but at the end of the day, it's not so different from manipulating images in the darkroom, cross processing or using different papers, or using a lot of filters when you capture the image. Whatever method you use it is still distorting reality...

I prefer to get the best possible image at the time of capture, but if it's not what I want I will try and make it so, but I try and keep processing to a minimum.

I'm not a fan of HDR, mainly because I've never had much success with it, but if it's your thing, and you can do it well, go for it

[taxor]

Digital manipulation is a thorny subject for some, but at the end of the day, it's not so different from manipulating images in the darkroom, cross processing or using different papers, or using a lot of filters when you capture the image. Whatever method you use it is still distorting reality...

Spot on. I don't understand the antipathy I sometimes see towards HDR photography (not necessarily in this forum). It can - and frequently does - appear overdone. It can also be breathtakingly beautiful and it certainly has its parallel and precedent in trad photography. In the darkroom we dodge, burn, flash, split-grade, bleach and tone to capture the essence of the subject. The only difference (as I see it) is the mechanics of the process.

[Dee_Phoenix]

How do you know that the image that isn't obviously HDR is "natural"? As has already been said, if it's been done well, you shouldn't be able to spot anything obvious.
Most of my images were mangled beyond recognition, and not particularly well in some cases But the judges are looking at the final image, the end result, presumably without knowing how you arrived at that result.

this kinda answers my question, the judges settling on the final image quality and maybe not giving too much importance as to how one gets there, even if the judge is a purist or an HDR conformist.

Personally, i'm not a great fan of HDR, the technique these days is so so so overdone, sometimes ending up looking like as if one's dog p****d all over a comic strip.

but anyways, thanks for all yr help, my mind is at ease now.



PS Kathy's images = wowser! Partial credit to those images for putting my mind at ease, gratz again for APOY'09