The puzzle pieces are starting to come together. Right now HDR-Video is still a very tight niche, but it's soon to become just as common as HDR images.

AMP prototype, second generation

Mike Tocci and his gang at Contrast Optical have designed a new slick housing for their AMP HDR video camera. It's now is a modular system, with a sturdy lens/sensor box separated from the actual recording unit. And it looks damn sexy too. Here's an exclusive sneak peek:




Here the camera is outfitted with a Nikon lens, but the word is that any lens mount is possible. The new housing is actually much smaller than it appears in the picture. It fits in the palm of a hand; the soft groove on the back is actually a very ergonomic thumb grip.

NaturalHDR for video tonemapping

Tonemapping moving HDR footage is a challenge. Photomatix and other local tonemappers tend to introduce flickering, because they adapt to the image content and treat every frame as individual photo.

To change this, John Hable set out to create a tonemapping plugin for After Effects, that is optimized for video footage. It's called NaturalHDR, was announced at SIGGRAPH, and is now in private beta phase. Here is a sneak peek trailer:



John previously worked out the filmic tonemapping for the award-winning look of the video game Uncharted (here's his GDC presentation), so he knows exactly what he's doing. He also started a new blog with some really good articles on human vision and natural/painterly tonemapping. Check it out at 19lights.com.

Shooting HDR Timelapse with Jay Burlage

You're probably wondering how these HDR clips were shot, as HDR video cameras are still in prototype stage. Jay Burlage did that, and has all the answers for you. He's the master of HDR timelapse and recently built his own business (and open source community) around awesome robotic DSLR dolly sliders.

Check out this video tutorial, where Jay goes into detail about planning and setting up HDR Timelapse shots:



Pretty slick dolly, isn't it? The only thing I can't get too excited about is the user interface of the controller unit. I'd much rather prefer an iPod/Android connector or NintendoDS, so there is a rich user interface for more intuitive interaction.

Upcoming HDR Video player

XDepth, formerly known for its excellent HDR image compression technology, is currently working on a high-performance HDR video player for both Windows and Mac. It will have elaborate exposure and toning controls, run GPU-accelerated, and use a backward-compatible AVI compression scheme.

extreme HDR Video camera developed at Q5Innovations

Another player enters the race, or rather sidesteps into it.
Q5Innovation has a history in building polarization imaging technology for medical, underwater and security/defense applications. Now they signed up Dr. James Plant, who is on his way to create a monster HDR camera. Preliminary performance specs are targeted for up to 160 db (equals about 26 stops of dynamic range!!), 120 fps at 6x HDTV, and incorporating the option for both OpenEXR data format as well as in-camera tonemapping ability.

Time to talk freely

So yeah, HDR Video is definitely evolving fast. My only fear is that we will end up with a lot of isolated solutions. To make sure all the puzzle pieces will fit together to form a smooth workflow some day, I think all involved parties should talk things out.

For that reason I created a new forum section dedicated to HDR Video:


So, register or log in, and let's get the open discussions started! If you've made an HDR video before (via timelapse or other means), post it! If you have a wish list of how you want HDR video to work for you, post that too! And if you have some HDR video technology in the making, get in touch with prospective users and listen carefully!

I spent the other week in Black Rock City. It was a truly mind-blowing experience. Burning Man is something between a party marathon, a spiritual journey, and a civilizatory utopia. Maybe a bit of hippie convention and survival camp mixed in. You're surrounded 24/7 by an explosion of creative insanity. It's surreal - yet it feels so much more natural than the real world. Instead of commerce there's joyful sharing, instead of cars there are bikes, instead of rigid laws there is common sense. Black Rock City very quickly feels like home.

So this month's sIBL is for all you burners out there.



There is also a new Picturenaut 3.2 beta version.

Highlight feature is the simple export of an HDR-HTML web widget like the one above. It's pretty stable, so grab the beta from the forum and post any bug reports or comments. And if you find it flawless, just leave a thank you.

I'm just coming from a review marathon of 20 HDR programs for the upcoming book revision. Turned out that one application really stood out from the crowd. I figured it would be mean to not share this with you right away, because you can most certainly use it for some great photography in the meantime.


This software with the somewhat cryptic name is written by the Sebastian Nibisz, a photo enthusiast from Poland. Without big company backing he put together a very impressive tonemapper, that deserves my personal newcomer award. It’s super-intuitive due to full-on realtime feedback and extremely halo-resistant.

Parameters like Microcontrast and Microdetails mimic the classic settings in Photomatix, but in addition there are separate controls for Highlights Protection and Midtone Contrast. These two sliders really make a difference, in other programs these can only be affected indirectly by getting a bunch of conflicting sliders in a delicate balance.

SNS-HDR also includes excellent hue/saturation equalizers. These color tools are not completely unique by themselves, but are rarely implemented with such a simple interface and so much flexibility. No other tool will let you fine tune the color range affected by each equalizer control point, or setup a separate equalizer curve that affects only the highlights. In fact, most parameters can have a separate value for highlights, indicated by a little H button. This extra bit of highlight control is super-useful in practice and is very easy to use. Thumbnail presets, history, white balance tool with color picker, color management with monitor profiles—all the important features are there and implemented with excellence.

A unique treat is the Series Processing function, which is exclusive to the Pro version. Series is just like Batch Processing, except that it stops for each set and lets you adjust the toning parameters. Makes it faster than manually digging through an entire folder of brackets, but puts you back in control of the result. Very cool.


So what’s missing? Well, there is no HDR or EXR output. Which might be fine considering this is a purely photographic tonemapping software. The HDR merge function is very good, but can’t be top of the class without more RAW options and manual control over alignment and ghost removal. Sharpen, noise removal and chromatic aberration correction would be nice to have as well. But this is really just nitpicking, it’s actually hard to find a serious flaw in this fine program.

There are three editions: a free command-line version, which is just a fire-and-forget tonemapper and may be interesting for setting up an automated workflow. The Home and Pro edition are really what I was talking about here, priced at $42 and $120. Both are largely identical, except the Pro edition includes batch processing and is licensed for commercial work. For the casual hobby HDR shooter I would recommend the $40 Home edition in a heartbeat. Sebastian is nice enough to grant my readers an exclusive 30% discount,so you can pick up your Pro edition for $85 here.


If you’re a former Photomatix user, and want to ramp up your game in the tonemapping department, SNS-HDR is an excellent companion app. The separate highlight treatment and tendency to produce a natural appearance makes it the real estate photographer’s best friend. In fact, it was my good friend Michael James who turned me on to it, another victim was Jay Burlage who used it for many of his HDR timelapse videos. For a full-on introduction check out Michael's video tutorial (on a slightly older version).

Probably the only thing that keeps SNS-HDR from overtaking the world is that the website is only available in Polish. And Google's auto-translation looks a bit scary. Have no fear, head straight to the download button on www.sns-hdr.com

PS: Please - won't some volunteer jump in and properly translate that website for Sebastian? I really don't want him to get distracted from adding selective ghost removal or other awesome stuff to SNS-HDR, so please somebody keep this monkey off his back…

Another day, another revolution!

This time it’s a real-world application of HDR video, brought to you by some smart Swedes. More precisely, a research group headed by Jonas Unger at the Linköping University. Together with Spheron-VR they created this insanely awesome HDR video camera. I’ve blogged about it before, but recently I had the opportunity to play with some footage and contribute this demo video:

HDRv sequences used for image based lighting in VFX on Vimeo.

So far the Teaser, stay tuned for a full Making-Of where I will show you a few things that I learned in the process. In the meantime, check out the new home of HDR video on the web:

www.hdrv.org

If you're heading to Siggraph, make sure circle the talk on Next-Generation IBL using HDR Video in your must-see calendar. There will be even more exciting things shown regarding 3D reconstruction (sneak peek here). And if your ticket is only good for the exhibition floor, drop by Spheron-VR at booth 254 (floorplan here).

Looks like it's time to crack a bottle of champagne! Check out the website stats:



Thank you all for coming here, I know a lot of you are regular visitors. And that number even excludes the community forum, otherwise it would be completely overwhelming. I really appreciate the continual support.

For the future, let's make a deal: I keep delivering original HDR news content, and you post a comment every once in a while. Because it feels weird when I'm the only one talking.

Cheers!