"Never let good clouds go to waste." -- Margaret Bourke-White

[sury]

For full disclosure: I found the subject title as a signature of someone in another forum.
Found it very appropriate for the theme here. All images taken handheld with A99M2 and Sigma 17-35
with Bracketing at 0.3eV and 9 images and post processed using Machinery HDR and LR5.
This entire set is taken with 9 image bracketing. A total of about 1120 images composited to 42 final images.
There are HDR shots and HDR Pano shots in this set. The largest being a 171 image group that has 19 image slices
stitched with each slice being 9 deep HDR. The slices in smaller panos overlapped quite a bit by design so that I could
get some squarish ration rather than an rectangle per se which is my typical pano.

This is the reference shot (non HDR) processed in LR5

[aster]

Hi, Sury;

Indeed, the clouds do make a natural scene more appealing to watch and ponder. I'll go for the third 'landscape' shot which offers 50% of land and sky each. Also, I think the glare in the second shot is pretty harsh as the scene is already dark and busy with scenic elements. And the 'portrait' trial of the first is much more limited than the 'landscape' version in the 3rd photo.

Pretty intriguing location, too.

Thanks for sharing,
Yildiz

[sury]

Thank you Yildiz. I included the first one to show how a non-HDR image looks like in that context. We have a bright lit sky, distant mountains in shadow, shimmering water and a bright foreground. The lighting was way beyond the DR of the sensor (of any camera
that is available today, I dare say). You can see how "relatively" flat the first image is.

No tripod was harmed during this photo session. It was safely observing shelter in place.

Keeping JT's advise in mind, I set about taking photos with a concept in mind as described for the first two images.

This was a 72 image (12 image pano, with each image 9image HDR) I did with 50% or more overlap with the intent of getting a squarish
panorama instead of a rectangular one. The intent was to make it look like a MF photo.



This one is a "simple" 4 image pano, with 9 image HDR for each slice, wanted to show a vacant foreground to convey the distance of the background hills. They were about 20 miles away.



This one was interesting as it elicited two extreme reactions when I shared it my friends. A total of 171 images went into work. 19 images in pano, with each image being a 9 image HDR. One of my largest panos ever in terms of sheer number of images.

[jbtaylor]

I have been thinking about responding for a few days and am still not sure what I think. My initial take is to agree with Yildiz about #3 in set 1. Yes, image 1 looks flat and I can see that your technique has addressed that issue nicely. Image #3 has balance and the rule of thirds plays out nicely. That nasty tree/shrub on the left kills any chance of real success with the image. I would bet that the area behind it is more pleasing to the eye. I will comment on set 2 in another post.

[jbtaylor]

First let me say that I was fatigued just by reading what you had to go through to put these images together. Bravo.
It looks like the 1st image suffers from some blemishes in the sky. Probably an easy fix. Not sure that the road on the right helps or not. What do you think? Would walking a few steps forward have helped?
Your stated goal for #2 was achieved. Are those commercial buildings on the left? Do they help the composition? My least favorite of the set.
I think image #3 is the strongest of the set. I would like to see more of the stone structure at the front and the entire tree on the left.
Would you print any of these?

[sury]

JT,
Thank you. I wanted to have the full width of the road to capture the location but had to crop due to irregular pano edge.
I can crop the road and see if that is indeed an annoyance. On the second, unfortunately I cannot do anything vis-a-vis the
commercial structures since it is a fenced off area. I could crop it and see how the cropped image looks like again. But that
somehow defeats the purpose of an UWA capture, IMHO. Will never the less give it a try.
The third one suffers a similar fate of a Pano taken handheld rather than pivoted around a nodal point. The sides were cropped
a tad all around. I may print few of them as is my wont. My home is my "gallery" and every few months or so I change the "displays".

Sury

[jbtaylor]

It seems that the technique both limited and expanded your vision. Difficult balance.
How about using that wide angle to show your display walls at home? That would be interesting.