free HDR image probe for my LW friends

[zuzzabuzz]

Classic university environment i suppose. The brick and mortar is very similar to my office up here at UNM. :cry:

Off to research SLR+cameras. I hate doing multiple exposures with my wee digital camera. Clouds move, Leaves move in the wind, camera wiggles, etc. "Fun"

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Interesting... (http://cameras.about.com/library/weekly/aa020401a.htm)

[uncon]

zuzzabuzz: UNM, I am here at NMSU! cool. This is the Society of Physics Students office, even though I graduated I still hang out here, SPS is having a zone meeting this weekend with lots of fun Physics things.

I wanted to make another HDR image probe outside but it is raining :shrug:

[zuzzabuzz]

Yeah, raining here too. Maybe we won't burn entirely down this summer!

Would be handy to have a "rain hdri" ..but I wouldn't wanna make it.

Looked at the department web page. Those animations/movies looked cool. You didn't by chance use lightwave for reenactments (dipoles in the little plastic balls, etc) did you?

[uncon]

When the rain stops I will go outside and make a probe. Untill then I am just gonna hang out here.....

Yeah, the magnets and balls were rendered out in Lightwave, but the motions of the dipole were the product of a little C++ program I wrote to simulate the interaction, I formated the output to load into Lightwave like a motion file and then applied that motion to the dipole objects.

[CourtJester]

Originally posted by zuzzabuzz
Off to research SLR+cameras. I hate doing multiple exposures with my wee digital camera. Clouds move, Leaves move in the wind, camera wiggles, etc. "Fun"

Find one with auto exposure bracketing. The more +/- stops and shot taken, the better. I am unaware, however, of any camera that does more than 3 shots, +1 and -1 stops...

[SMH]

About those glass probes, where can one buy them in the states? You mentioned WalMart but their online site doesn't list them.



Thanks

[zuzzabuzz]

A friend of mine bought me one at Big Lots aka Pic'n'Save. I've also seen them in the garden section of Target, occasionaly. Gazing balls..

[uncon]

Also try Hobby Lobby, they have a bunch.

CourtJester: Autobracketing is nice, but it is really meant for taking photographs in weird lighting, so you get three images. My camera (like most) will let you over and under expose between -3.0 EV and +3.0 EV. For these images I was just shooting in a regular mode and varying the EV from each shot. The HDR images here are composed of 13 seperate images, they go quick though because my camera processes the pics really fast.

A note about the sigma sd9 though, do not buy it untill you have tried it out! I love it but the thing is a brick with no extra features. The camera has no built-in flash, saves only raw images that need to be translated by a computer program (no jpg's), no movie mode, and like all digital SLR's (except for maybe the Olympus E1) it can't do a live LCD preview. Just a warning.

[zuzzabuzz]

Okay. I was wondering how automagical the process was for you.

So, you took multiple images...but did you have to adjust exposure for each one, or was there a way to automate this?
It's just I see zero motion in the image, so it looks as if you took all the exposure info instantaneously.

How many images, and how long to get them all?

[uncon]

I took 13 images by just changing EV settings, it was very easy. 6 hi-rez images fit in the cameras ram so you can get the first half very quick, then it is about a ten second wait for each picture after that. Total time taken is probably around two minutes. These are just rounded off numbers, I wasn't actually timing it.

I think I might make a partly cloudy probe today at the lower resolution because I think I can fit all 13 images in the buffer. That would make it very quick.

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