Here is my guide to HDR using the P4P.  My opinion only.

First you need to understand that you only need HDR when the brightest and darkest parts of the photograph cannot be displayed at the same time, and you end up with either a totally white sky or totally black shadows with no detail.  However if you take a RAW image with the fine camera fitted to this P4P these occasions are quite rare.  In LightRoom or Aperture or any number of editing programs the lightest skies can be adjusted using the highlights slider, and the shadows can be adjusted using the shadows slider to give a correctly exposed sky and to reveal detail in the shadows.  The RAW is 16 bit and contains millions of colours and thousands of shades of each colour.

This does not apply to JPEG.  The JPEG is 8 bit and contains a limited amount of colours and just 256 levels of each colour.  Which is why it usually looks worse after you try to adjust it.

Also bear in mind that if you are going to take 3 or 5 or 7 pictures in succession, then the camera will move up, down and side to side, and forward to back in the hover, and each photo will not be perfectly aligned with each other.

If you still want to try HDR here is, IMHO, the best way:


Take RAW shots.
Select manual exposure, manual white balance, and aperture of f5 to f5,6 which is the sharpest iris for this lens.
Select ISO 100 for the least noise.
Focus using focus peaking.
Then determine the brightest part of the scene, and base your exposure on the sky by reference to the histogram. So your first shot should be with a correct exposure, normally for the sky and the clouds, maybe the sun if you are going to include this.
Then by changing the shutter speed, not the aperture or ISO, increase the exposure by 1 or 2 stops each exposure until you get the detail that you require in the shadows. Don't touch any of the flying controls. You should then have a series of photographs with the sky correctly exposed, and the shadows correctly exposed, which you then combine into an HDR photograph.

If You get 3 sharp photos, then no need to do 5 or 7. Result will be the same.

If the brightest 3 are the sharp ones, then you won't get the shadow detail.And its not sharpness we are talking about here but movement between shots.

How do you think HDR works?

Why wouldn't you use the built-in AEB function to make your shots?

Labroides Posted at 2017-2-1 15:23
Why wouldn't you use the built-in AEB function to make your shots?

If it works like the AEB function on the Mavic, since they share the same App, then all it does is change the ISO, which isn't the way most people shoot HDR.  The best really would be to give a choice of which variables to lock and which it can adjust to adjust the exposure.

Please share some examples of your high dynamic range pics... ;-)


RedHotPoker

Thank you for this, would really like to see some samples. Good job.

Labroides Posted at 2017-2-1 15:23
Why wouldn't you use the built-in AEB function to make your shots?

The built-in AEB only allows 0.7 stop of bracketing for 3 shot, although you could use 5 shot and get 1.4 stop.
This is one reason I have used Litchi for HDR work.  It gives many options for AEB.

Stewie Griffin Posted at 2017-2-2 00:42
If it works like the AEB function on the Mavic, since they share the same App, then all it does is change the ISO, which isn't the way most people shoot HDR.  The best really would be to give a choice of which variables to lock and which it can adjust to adjust the exposure.

Well that's not how it works at all for me.
AEB works properly and depending on your settings, you can set it to lock down everything else and just change the shutter speed.

My own tests show that the AEB 5 shot capture varies the shutter speed by 0,6 of a stop between each exposure.  1/10, 1/15, 1/25, 1/40, 1/60 so about 2,5 stops between 5 photos.
On the ground with a very sturdy tripod, I normally use 2 stops between each exposure, so a 5 shot sequence based on 1/25 second "correct" exposure, would go something like  1/2, 1/6, 1/25, 1/100, 1/400 so about 8 stops between the lightest and darkest.  This is the sort of difference in exposure that is needed for HDR.
That is why most HDR shots from Phantoms still have blown out skies/sun or lack detail in shadows.
Hence I suggest taking single RAW shots, correctly exposed, and lifting the shadows and attenuating the high lights in software.

As for capturing aerial HDR, I have found it virtually impossible, because the movement of the Phantom between shots, either up/down, left/right, fwd/back, roll and yaw means that every shot is taken from a different place in 3D, resulting in artefacts where a sharp edge moves between each shot.

The first shot below show a 5 shot sequence merged in Lightroom.  Which shows the amount of movement between shots and also a burnt out sky.

The second shot is a single RAW shot taken from the 5 shot sequence, it does not show any artifacts from Phantom movement, and also shows much better sky exposure (by using highlight slider) and very good shadow detail (revealed by using shadows slider).

The bottom picture is my final edit from the single RAW shot.

liningiv Posted at 2017-2-2 06:13
My own tests show that the AEB 5 shot capture varies the shutter speed by 0,6 of a stop between each exposure.  1/10, 1/15, 1/25, 1/40, 1/60 so about 2,5 stops between 5 photos.
On the ground with a very sturdy tripod, I normally use 2 stops between each exposure, so a 5 shot sequence based on 1/25 second "correct" exposure, would go something like  1/2, 1/6, 1/25, 1/100, 1/400 so about 8 stops between the lightest and darkest.
That is why most HDR shots from Phantoms still have blown out skies/sun or lack detail in shadows.

Is this true at higher altitudes for HDR? your images were taken not all that high.  Also, what PP are you using? Lightroom? Thanks for your input.

Labroides Posted at 2017-2-2 05:02
Well that's not how it works at all for me.
AEB works properly and depending on your settings, you can set it to lock down everything else and just change the shutter speed.

Agreed. I use the AEB function for HDR merges in Affinity Photo and it definitely doesn't just change ISO.

liningiv Posted at 2017-2-2 06:13
My own tests show that the AEB 5 shot capture varies the shutter speed by 0,6 of a stop between each exposure.  1/10, 1/15, 1/25, 1/40, 1/60 so about 2,5 stops between 5 photos.
On the ground with a very sturdy tripod, I normally use 2 stops between each exposure, so a 5 shot sequence based on 1/25 second "correct" exposure, would go something like  1/2, 1/6, 1/25, 1/100, 1/400 so about 8 stops between the lightest and darkest.  This is the sort of difference in exposure that is needed for HDR.
That is why most HDR shots from Phantoms still have blown out skies/sun or lack detail in shadows.

Won't Lightroom align the images based on content?  Photoshop CS6 does.

m1shootr Posted at 2017-2-2 07:33
Is this true at higher altitudes for HDR? your images were taken not all that high.  Also, what PP are you using? Lightroom? Thanks for your input.

You would think that the farther away from the subject then the smaller effect the Phantom movement, in the hover, would have on the final image, but I think this depends very much on the movement direction.  A couple of inches either way in the fwd/aft or left/right planes would have little effect, but if the movement is in roll or yaw, then the effect will be larger, but hopefully compensated for by the gimbal.  In my first example, I think the movement was up/down because the horizon was affected just as the foreground.

hdr requires 3 shots because it tries to render the best contrast at three different levels of sensitivity of the camera sensor:
> the highest sensitivity will render details in darkest parts of the frame (color of eyes, shaded areas)
> the neutral sensitivity will render the normally lit areas
> the low sensitivity will render detail in highly lit areas (clouds, sun reflection in water, snow, etc)

macro lens are best at capturing the subject in right light, because all ambiental light outside the frame has not effects of offset (doesnt add up to wash the colors because doesnt reach the sensor).

we have a wide lens, not a macro. wide is at the other end, where since the subject is the entire frame, then the lighting has an integrative effect: the brightest white areas will set the white level (which doesnt have to be 100% white) and from there down all details will be rendered at the sensitivity of the sensor, as to balance the white surface with the black surface in order to render as much as possible detail in between.

i like hdr, but fact is when i focus on my subject and the metering is also taken at focus point, i know for sure that my subject will be rendered with best possible detail. so yes, the background looses detail (due to different lighting than the subject), is a trade-off.

in message 10 you show a lightroom hdr result and you say is the effect of motion.
by looking at power lines it looks like there is no motion at all.

by looking at grass i say that is low light rendering (it looks good so the sensor was at high sensitivity), which indicates an expansion of bright aura around lit objects and a diminishing of shaded areas.

while i agree motion existed, the extreme overlaping is resulted from the the three exposure levels which created prevalent glowing interference rather than motion interference.

How did you find out that f5-5.6 is the sharpest aperture for the P4P lens?

liningiv Posted at 2017-2-2 08:33
You would think that the farther away from the subject then the smaller effect the Phantom movement, in the hover, would have on the final image, but I think this depends very much on the movement direction.  A couple of inches either way in the fwd/aft or left/right planes would have little effect, but if the movement is in roll or yaw, then the effect will be larger, but hopefully compensated for by the gimbal.  In my first example, I think the movement was up/down because the horizon was affected just as the foreground.

Most HDR software has anti-ghosting to fix all of this so it's not an issue.

Labroides Posted at 2017-2-4 15:43
Most HDR software has anti-ghosting to fix all of this so it's not an issue.

Yep - and if the P4 isn't steady in the air I don't know which aircraft is.