Car Photos - HDR

[Scraff]

Thanks to DI-Joe for his recent post on how he shot his cars, I have been playing with a few different techinques to see how my shots would come out. I am planning on shooting my truck along with a new X5 but that means I have to actaully take the time to clean them. Please let me know what you think...I am pretty happy with how my first attempts turned out.
Thanks...Scott

Friend's Audi A5

http://scraff.smugmug.com/photos/362001931_PCFxU-L.jpg

Friend's A4

http://scraff.smugmug.com/photos/364169222_wpzP5-L.jpg


Brother-In-Law's Colorado

http://scraff.smugmug.com/photos/364169135_Qfbj8-L.jpg

http://scraff.smugmug.com/photos/364169137_FwGz5-L.jpg

[DaddyO]

Really interesting, very cool, effect offered with the HDR technique.
Love shot 1. :D

[DI-Joe]

Scraff, you might want to smooth them out a little more, you have some lines that shouldn't be defined and it tends to "flatten" the image and takes the perceived-from-shading depth out of the image. So in photomatix, you'd click more to the right side in the smoothing options(I'm assuming you're using photomatix). Sorry I haven't been around, been really busy with work. :)

Keep practicing!!! HDR isn't easy to learn or really predict. You'll eventually find your style. Just be forewarned... some folks... HATE HDRI's no matter how awesome the pic may look or how awesome the subject is. Some folks hate it and that's cool. That's why when I shoot cars, I'll just take the middle exposure from the HDR triplet and process that one normally so they have a choice.

And most of all, don't take me or anyone else trying to help you so seriously. HDR is both an effective tool and an art... you do what you feel is beautiful. However, when you're using HDR as it's actually indended it shouldn't look otherworldly at all. Purists will tend to hammer you for going extreme with it. Just take your licks and move on... They're not wrong, but they're not right either.

Keep up the good work! :)