Experimenting with HDR Photography

You may have noticed recently that some photographs on Schnitzelbahn don't look quite... "normal".  (Check out the photos of the recent Springtime in Munich post.)  That's because Frau A and I are trying our hand at HDR Photography.  Here's one example (one of my favorites):

HDR stands for High Dynamic Range.  To get a more comprehensive overview, check out this article at DPReview.com, one of the best photography sites anywhere.  Of course, Wikipedia has good info as well.  But I'll try to summarize here...

It's the Catch-22 of sun vs. shadow:  On a bright day, we take a photo of something but the sky is ruined.  Exhibit A:

What happened?  Before taking a shot, the camera meters a scene -- analyzes the amount of light that will be let in.  It uses metering to choose the aperture and shutter speed for a shot.  In this case the trees came out OK, but even at 1/200th of a second we got too much light from the clouds (they were overexposed, or "blown out").

We can tell the camera to meter on the clouds, either manually or just pointing the center of the frame at the sky... but then the opposite occurs.  Exhibit B:

Now the clouds are better, but trees and some brick are way too dark.  Why can't the camera capture both the bright highlights and the darker shadows?  It's a technical limitation:  the sensor (or, previously, the chemical film) simply cannot handle that range of luminance.

DPReview.com visualizes the problem like this:

One of the first techniques to get around this problem was called exposure blending.  Logically, we would want to take multiple photographs with different exposures (often using the bracketing function in today's cameras) and combine them to get the "best of both worlds".  DPReview visualizes it this way:

Exposure blending can be done in a number of different software programs like Photoshop, and was possible with chemical film as well.  (Of course, moving objects will appear at different places in each exposure, but there are techniques to deal with this "ghosting" too.)  This solves the exposure problems we had before, and the output is pretty realistic:

A newer technique is called tone-mapping, which was not possible with chemical film.  In this technique, a digital HDR image is created from the bracketed exposures.  This file has so much dynamic range that it cannot be displayed correctly on any output device (computer monitors, printed out, etc.)!  Software is then used to set the parameters on how this 'super-image' is translated into to something we can display and print.  DPReview visualizes it like this:

What is unique about tone-mapping (vs. exposure blending) is that it can work "locally".  Previously, we could change the global contrast within a photo, but tone mapping can adjust how neighboring pixels relate to each other as well (local contrast).  This gives photographers must more flexibility in crafting the final, viewable output from the huge range of luminance and color stored in the HDR file.

Within this flexibility, the results can range from mostly realistic...

... to "painterly" or "grungy" output that extends to the surreal:

You will see a lot of discussion and passionate opinions from photographers on this topic.  Some don't like the unrealistic results while others love the artistic, other-worldly potential.  One of the most well-known HDR photographers is Trey Ratcliff, whose site Stuck In Customs has stunning photos.

Perhaps you've read my prior post on the Olympus Dramatic Tone "art filter"?  How do these compare?  The dramatic tone art filter appears to increase contrast and apply an exposure curve -- these are applied globally.  Tone mapping can operate locally and be more precise.

Below are two similar images, taken moments apart.  The first is with the Olympus Dramatic Tone art filter, the second with 5 bracketed exposures and tonemapped.

    

I still like the Dramatic art filter a lot, but the trees and water simply have more depth after tonemapping.

The output can be fascinating, but there are some pitfalls of the HDR process.  Below, you'll see the original camera JPG and then a bracketed/tonemapped image of the balcony at Nymphenburg Palace in Munich:

The HDR output has more detail in the stone & sky, and "pops" out at you, but...

- the trees were moving in the wind, and are blurry in the merged exposure (you can imagine what moving people might look like!)
- the merging process also amplified the vignetting of my lens (upper corners are dark)
- the tone-mapping process resulted in a bluish "halo" around the top of the stone "urn" (on the left) - this is a common tonemapping problem along the sky's border

Although it would be nice to have the software do everything automatically, it just doesn't work that way.  So we have found also that we spend more time post-processing our photos.  There's a lot to learn.

Frau A and I will continue to experiment with HDR photography -- it's been fun so far, and hopefully you like the results too.

Springtime in Munich

I've always loved spring (and summer and fall), but I think it takes living somewhere with a real winter to truly appreciate how wonderful spring is.

Seemingly overnight we go from dark and cold to late evening sun, beautiful skies, flowers everywhere, and of course, baby ducks. I love the baby ducks....and swans and geese.

 The Mariensäule (Mary's Column) in Marienplatz, in front of the New Rathaus. It was installed in 1638 to honor Mary (she's the patron saint of Bavaria) after the "miracle" of Munich being spared destruction by the Swedes during the Thirty Years War.  As Herr J previously discovered, the four cherubs at the bottom are represented slaying the four plagues of humanity (represented by animal forms) - war, pestilence, hunger, and heresy.  I'm looking forward to the day that the Frauenkirche (domes in the background) restoration is complete. Since I've lived here, one dome or the other has been covered. My dream is to one day be able to take a decent picture of this Munich icon!

Lovely wisteria in the Schloss Nymphenburg gardens. Though I have a bit of a prejudice against wisteria (it strangles the lovely oak trees in the south, where I grew up), it does have beautiful flowers and can be a lovely decoration if it's kept tame.  One of the perks of having a full-time staff of gardeners, I guess!

Some early season goslings out for a morning nibble (and nap).

Spring is a great time for walks and for feeding the birds in Munich's many gardens. This boy feeds the swans and ducks in front of Schloss Nymphenburg.

 

Sadly, not everywhere let's you feed the animals.

A late tulip and colorful flower beds in the Alter Botanischer Garten ("Old Botanical Garden").  These gardens date back to the beginning of the 19th century, but were replaced in 1914 when the New Botanical Garden was built adjacent to Nymphenburg Palace.  These small gardens are now an open park by the Lenbachplatz.  The Park Cafe is a lovely bar and biergarten (Löwenbräu) that opens onto the gardens and is worth a visit.

A lovely golden green tree in front of the Salvatorkirche, a Greek Orthodox church on Salvatorplatz (behind the Fünf Höfe and Theatinerkirche) and next to the Literaturhaus (nice cafe/bistro and a program of speeches by visiting writers, such as David Sedaris and Brett Easton Ellis).  This church initially was the cemetery church for the much larger Frauenkirche, but since has been used by a variety of parishes and denominations, as well as for a depot and granary after the secularization of Bavaria. Luckily its use as storage space saved it from destruction and it still stands today on a small square amid the city center.  

    A mother goose teaches her goslings how to have fun in the lakes of the English Garden. 

More tulips, in front of the Neptune Fountain in the Alter Botanischer Garten.  Here, they've planted mainly red and white tulips and white daffodils.

Someone enjoys a warm afternoon read (before the rains arrive) in the gardens in front of the Bayerische Staatskanzlei (Bavarian Chancellery).

And back to the adorable baby ducks...   

Fünf Höfe Photo Fun

On the way home from a Sunday photowalk through the English Garden, Herr J and I cut through the Fünf Höfe, one of Central Munich's shopping centers.  I've always liked the architecture there, particularly the modern and airy passages in the middle of a historic city block. But we were shocked to realize what fun photo opportunities were in there. All of the textures and reflections were great fun for playing around with HDR photography. 

 

"Fünf Höfe" means "Five Courtyards" in German, an appropriate name for the building spanning a block with passages full of cafes, restaurants, and shops.  And, as a typical German real estate asset, it has offices and apartments on the upper floors. Sitting between the Frauenkirche and Odeonsplatz, the building has an important history as the home of HypoVereinsbank, one of Munich's oldest banks (its roots trace back to the late 1700s). As is often the case here, they sought to keep the historical facade of the building while building something modern and new inside.  According to the center's website, the design was inspired by the courtyards of the nearby Residenz palace.  I often take a shortcut through there as a nice change of pace - it's usually peaceful and with comfortable "weather" inside.

It's quite a nice place to spend a rainy, wintry Sunday afternoon, visiting the Hypo Kunsthalle art museum, followed by coffee in one of the cafes or lunch at Vapiano (reliably good and open late and on Sunday).  During the week, you can shop at a variety of clothing, home, and art stores, as well as Munich's Muji. (Muji is a Japanese home/small good store that's worth a browse, if you've never been in one.  Their focus is on no-brand, minimalist products, usually made of recyclable materials. But they have a great blend of form and function, so that you'll have a really hard time walking out without finding several things you "need"). 

The museum entrance is on the Theatinerstraße side and, though small for a museum, often has good exhibits. There have been a wide variety of themes, artists, and time periods, with the exhibit changing every few months. The Mark Rothko retrospective a couple of years ago was particularly good.  As it's an exhibition gallery rather than one with a permanent collection, you'll need to check periodically to see what's there.

In addition to the open entrances to the passages, there are other areas with open roofs, blurring the boundaries between indoors and outdoors.  

As the complex houses the small museum that Hypovereinsbank sponsors, they also integrated art into the architecture. The hanging gardens through the Salvatorpassage actually are a living installation by Düsseldorf artist Tita Giese.

They blend in so well that they almost escape notice, but you'll also find 12 laser-printed panels throughout the building. These are prints of photos by German photographer Thomas Ruff, meant "give onlookers the impression that they are floating over cityscapes and the countryside." These scenes are of nature, the Munich area in which the Fünf Höfe sits, and Manhattan streets.  You'll see one on the floor in the picture below (bottom right corner).

And the most noticeable art piece hangs in the Viscardihof - a giant steel lattice-work sphere by Olafur Eliasson, an Icelandic artist. The shape and structure is supposed to represent "global openness and worldwide networks."

 

source - Fünf Höfe website

Time Lapse Photography

We linked to a teriffic video ad for Google, and found this not long after.  It's a video of time-lapse photography, in this case city scenes.  Very cool.

As with the Google video, it's interesting to note the huge impact that music has.  A single photograph stands alone fine, but moving pictures benefit tremendously (and you could say are transformed by) the accompanying music.

In this time-lapse video from Dominic Boudreault, you might recognize the music:  "Time", from the musical score to the movie Inception, composed by Hans Zimmer.

Cities included are Montreal, Quebec City, Toronto, New York City (Manhattan), and Chicago.

Happy Mothers' Day!

Wishing a very happy Mothers' Day to both our moms, and all the others out there.

This good duck mother in the English Garten teaches us the true meaning of "take you under my wing." 

Photoblog - Munich through a zoom lens

We blogged earlier about trying to look at your home city from a new, fresh perspective.  In that case, it was actually paying attention to the detailed figures on some of Munich's fountains and buildings rather than take the typical touristy wide-angle skyline photo.

With a nice zoom lens (in this case, the simple 10x on my now deceased Canon SX200IS) we can also look up, to find more detail in places where the eyes don't travel as often.

The first pic is the front-top of the Justizpalast (justice building), home of the Landgericht (judiciary system).  It's located at the popular Karlsplatz where people like to sit by the fountain and enjoy nice weather like the blue sky we see here.  As in the prior post, I rarely know the meaning behind the statues or relief, but we can make out a figure with the scales of justice, and another with a caduceus representing commerce and trade (probably the desire for fair dealings).

Now that I have my Olympus micro-four-thirds camera, I will definitely be back for more of this building. 

The next building is a poor thing -- the Old City Hall (Altes Rathaus) on Marienplatz.  Because the New City Hall (Neues Rathaus) is so famous with its glockenspiel the Altes Rathaus almost never gets any attention!  The sun reflecting off the clock caught my attention, and it turned out to be a nice subject.  Many town halls in Germany have a clock with astronomical symbols (signs of the zodiac) and I think that's what we see here as well.

Staying at Marienplatz, I then tackled the column that is "in the way" of tourists getting an unobstructed photo of the Neues Rathaus -- the Mariensaeule (Marian column), right in the middle of the square.  As Wikipedia explains: the column is topped by a golden statue of the Virgin Mary standing on a crescent moon as the Queen of Heaven.  I'm guessing it's her royal sceptre that she's holding in the hand opposite the baby Jesus?  And that's quite a crown too...

Finally, I went after another gold & gleaming piece, this time atop the Heiliggeistkirche (Church of the Holy Ghost).  Of course there is the mandatory depiction of Mary again (bottom, with a similar crown and sceptre).  But at the top, I believe this is the Eye of Providence, which represents God watching over humankind.  Remind you of something?  A version is also on the Great Seal of the United States and also on the U.S. One Dollar Bill.

It's funny... you see something new, and then realize it's been around you in other forms all the time.

German Street Artists - anamorphic painting

Kurt Wenner is an American artist that lived in Europe during the early eighties, and claims to have invented anamorphic street painting in 1984.  This is not typical chalk art, but are intended to be viewed from a particular perspective and there trick the eye into seeing a 3-D image.  His images are impressive.

There are a couple German artists who have followed with similar success.  I've never seen these people or their work in person, but I really hope to.

First is Edgar Mueller, from Muelheim.  His website claims "Since 1998 Edgar Müller has held the title of 'maestro madonnari' (master street painter), born by only a few artists worldwide. The title is awarded at the world’s largest street painting festival, called The Grazie Festival, which is held in the small pilgrim town of Grazie in Italy."

He too travels to festivals and competitions, like what he did in Geldern, Germany:

Cool how he uses real people to enhance the effect.

The second guy is Manfred Stader.  He studiet art in Frankfurt and is now freelance - his web site makes it clear that you can even hire him to create 3-D street art at your festival/event/etc.  He did this in Hong Kong for a conference:

What is just as cool is seeing a time-lapse video that shows the "making of" art like this.  Here is a video from Edgar Mueller.  You can see the team mapping out the lines of perspective at the start:

Edgar and Manfred both have many more pictures on their personal sites, and Manfred has videos too.  Hopefully Frau A and I run into one of them this Summer.