More sIBL-sets than you can eat!

Finally we have a proper archive, where all free sIBL-sets are collected in one spot. Not only will you find all past sIBL-of-the-months there, but also new contributions from our friends at HDR-VFX and Chris Huf. I dare to say this is the biggest free HDR collection in general, at least at this level of quality.

Happy Halloween, my friends!

A fresh wind is blowing through HDRLabs.

His name is Kirt Witte, he is a Professor of Visual Effects, and he contributed a great FAQ on all things HDR. While we're at it, I threw in a tutorial on embedding HDR images on a website (as seen on the infamous sIBL-of-the-month release pages), and my very first screencast on sIBL-Edit. Thus, the tutorial section is now officially open - certainly with much more cool content to come...

Reopened is the Hot on Flickr gallery. It's been down for a while because someone pointed out some flaws that wouldn't comply with Flickr's TOS. Specifically, the attribution wasn't as clear as it should be, and it was also pulling too many images from Flickr on a single page. I was wrestling the site code really hard, and now it gives full credit to the amazing people that make these images. As it should be. This gallery is meant to be a "Hall of Fame", providing exposure for the best HDR shooters on Flickr. And I fully agree, there can't be too much attribution given here.

Many more things have come up in the past weeks, and I haven't told you anything about my findings at Photokina yet. Will do this in the posts to follow, now that the site is back in good shape.

Christian Bloch

Canon just won't make us HDR shooters happy.

They instist on the ridiculous 3-frame bracketing, even on the brand new EOS 5D Mark II. Apparently they consider HDR photography a serious pro feature, and keep larger brackets exclusive to the flagship EOS 1Ds. How lame is that? The rest of us have to refer to Kirt's Cheat Sheet to shoot several overlapping brackets, or carry a laptop for shooting tethered.

But fear not - Steve Chapman has just invented HDR bracketing in style!

Using a Nintendo DS and a custom-built interface cartridge you can fire any set of exposure bracket. It also features a timelapse timer, a darkroom-safe nightvision skin, and sound-activated "clapper mode". This is software such an ingenious idea, because the DS is essentially a low power consumption, fully graphical interface computer with a touchscreen and a microphone. And it runs Super Mario Kart. And it's way cheaper than the iphone. What could be better suited for remote controlling your camera?

If you want this sweet thing to be yours, I suggest you'd shoot Steve an email right away.
Read all about this project on Steve's blog.

Still looking for the perfect companion volume to the HDRI Handbook?

Well, it might be just around the corner.

Jack Howard, well-renowned editor at PopPhoto and long-time friend of HDRLabs just wrote a new book on HDRI. It's very slick looking, very rocky-nooky, very professional photography. And it's called Practical HDRI, hinting at Jack's hands-on approach of teaching.

It's out just now, pre-ordering from Amazon will ensure you get a copy as soon as it's coming down the delivery pipe.

The sIBL of the month is a real gem from my personal collection: the milky way in it's full glory. So get your shiny space ship ready and render away to new frontiers.

Also, there is now a German forum section, after I realized that the German version of the HDRI Handbook became pretty popular. Not quite sure how many readers of the Czech HDRI Handbook are around here, but so far I haven't had any request for a Czech forum....

Next stop: Photokina

Photokina is about to happen, and it will be great this year.

Nikon just got the new D90 out, with 24p HD movie mode and the low-noise CMOS sensor known from the D700 and D3. Bracketing is limited to 3 frames, though. Personally I will wait for DX-sized CMOS sensor to come to the successor of the D300... Also new are the Pentax 200D and the Canon 50D. There's even rumor of a Canon 5D Mark II, and Photokina sounds like just the right launch event.


I will hold a workshop at Photokina as part of the fotoespresso series, organized by my publisher dpunkt. Seats are going fast, considering that this is a super slick deal: For 99 Euros you get a copy of the HDRI Handbook, a daypass for Photokina, and all the personal tutoring I can cram into three hours. The workshop will probably be split 70/30 into a presentation and a hands-on problem solving part where I'll try to answer your questions.
Don't miss the show, sign up here!