Living Colours with Exilim ZR100 HDR-ART

A photograph is a time machine. It brings us back to the moment we first greeted the world, our important events, milestones, holidays and helps us remember the people in our lives. But more than a memory bank, a photo is also a medium of communicating beauty that has the ability to alter the mood of a viewer.

To me, I think the best photographs are those that seamlessly blend the 2 functions together where the adventures in our lives are captured beautifully. And it need not be difficult. Nor does one need a big camera to do it. A powerful compact camera such as the Casio Exilim ZR100 can do the job more than adequately.

I’ve been using the camera for about 2 weeks now and I must say I’m really impressed at what I could do with it, the ease of use and the quality of images. I’ve shared in my previous post about the HDR mode and how it’s so easy to acquire High Dynamic Range (HDR) shots with just one click. In this post, I’ll go a step further and share with you my experiments with the Casio Exilim ZR100 HDR-ART mode.

What’s the difference between HDR and HDR-ART mode you may ask? Instead of describing it to you in words, I’ll let the photos taken in the HDR-ART mode do the talking. All photos in this post have NOT been post-processed with Photoshop. There’s really no need to with HDR-ART mode anyway.

This photo was taken with the Casio Exilim ZR100 (EX-ZR100 in short) in Auto Mode. The sun was shining at the top right hand corner and I wanted to show the x-ray effect on the leaf caused by the bright light. However, the area of the light source in the photo was burnt-out.

I switched to HDR-ART mode and immediately, the veins of the leaf became more pronounced and the burnt-out spot was eliminated.

As you can see in the above example, the HDR-ART mode saturates the colours in a scene to produce photos that not only reap the benefit of HDR’s ability to balance exposure, but adds an artistic quality to the final image.

What is art is often subjective and open to personal preference, but I think it’s pretty cool that I have a camera that has the potential to artify anything if I choose to without external imaging softwares. This post will share with you the different lighting conditions and subject matters that have been shot in HDR-ART mode and their outcomes. You will see photos taken in that mode during dull skies, a rainy day, sunny day, outdoors, indoors, daily objects, and scenes with strong lighting components.

Visited the Gardens by the Bay during its preview but the sun was on vacation that day. I tried to take a photo of this branchy structure that is one of the icons of the development but it turned out so depressive.

Shot in HDR-ART mode, the colours of the organic tower came to life!

View from my window during a rainy, misty day shot in Auto mode.

Same view shot in HDR-ART mode. The evening sun and dispersing clouds came into focus while streaks of rainfall are visible against the darker green canopies of the trees.

Still on dull grey skies that dominates our November / December weather here in Singapore, this aerial shot of Centrepoint in HDR mode (left) and HDR-ART mode (right) shows the whimsical cartooning effect of the latter mode. HDR-ART mode works well with subjects or scenes with lots of lights. But it can also be an overkill so experiment and determine if the result is to your liking.

Dramatic Photos with Just a Touch

Okay, enough of grey-skied photos. Here’s a collection of shots showing what happens when the situations had been HDR-ARTed!

The sky makes for a great subject to use the HDR-ART mode on especially when there's a sharp contrast. In this photo, the sky seem to form a paw imprint over the Bangkok General Post Office and it reminded me of my 2 lovely dogs at home.

HDR-ART captured the gloriousness of a sunny day at Merlion Park spined by the Singapore CBD skyline. Personally, I find that the HDR-ART is not suitable for scenes with a lot of elements as they fight for attention. This scene somehow worked but there were many that were deleted because they were too busy for the eyes in HDR-ART mode.

Visage of Bangkok's CentralWorld office wing. This was taken with HDR-ART mode's Level 1 strength in colour saturation and I thought the photo looks very natural as the ART mode can make things look rather artificial at times.

From the exterior of buildings, I tested HDR-ART on the interior of buildings such as this photo of the Suvarnabhumi Airport. I love how the colours looks so natural at Level 1 saturation in HDR-ART mode.

Another interior architectural shot. This time of in-building decorations such as the cyclical art installation at the foyer of Novena Square. the cyclical installation at the foyer of Novena Square.

Fly Awaves. Initially, I couldn't decide if this pic was taken in the HDR-ART mode because the colours looked so natural. Then I consulted other photos I took of this scene in other modes (Auto and HDR) and I confirmed this is HDR-ART because the colours were more vivid compared to the others.

Exterior of my office. I wanted to see how HDR-ART performs in a scene like this with strong and muted colours. The earthy hues remained sombre but the pinkish highlights of the floral motifs were given a flourescent fushia upgrade!

Having looked at how HDR-ART bring out the colours of scenic and architectural subjects, the following photos will demonstrate how this mode performs with daily life objects and when used during the night.

Strong primary colours get wildly accented in the HDR-ART mode. Here's an example of how the pink flowers of a dwarf frangipani (kalachuchi) was made louder in this mode!

Asian profusion of sleeping beauty or Ai Li in Wonderland?

My newly acquired radio bag from Jatuchak Market. Love how the HDR-ART mode made it look so retrolicious and funky-cool!

Shot taken below my flat. My family and neighbourhood is my circle of life.

Here’s a tip you should know. The HDR-ART mode offers the flexibility of controlling the level of colour saturation. The preceding photos were taken with varying strengths of colouration but I couldn’t recall what I used in most of them. So I decided to chart the differences between the various levels in the following photos. In the HDR-ART mode, you can decide between a level of 1 to 3 for how artified you want your photos to look.

As a general observation, I realise that focusing improves with the higher saturation level (that is, Level 3) as more of the subject is in focus. Level 1 is good for having just an element closest to the camera sharp while the rest of the subject gets blurred. Look at the clarity of the green glass piece in the above photos to get what I mean. Level 1 has more of the lantern out-of-focus while keeping green section relatively clear. Overall sharpness is achieved with Level 3.

However, this is used indoors on a single object. I think Level 1 is great for taking HDR-ART shots of landscape and buildings to give them stronger colours yet looking natural. Looking at all the photos on this post again, can you identify which were shot with Level 1, 2 or 3?

HDR-ART mode loves the light. No better time to use it than this Christmas! I call this shot, the Infinity of Creativity with HDR-ART!

With Casio Exilim ZR100 HDR-ART mode, colours go on steriods to create photos that are not just a mere record of things happened and seen, but opens up an artistic realm. Sorta like Andy Warhol’s famous pop-art treatment to a can of Campbell Soup and Marilyn Monroe. Oh, I didn’t put up photos of people taken in the HDR-ART mode because I felt they look rather weird. Maybe it’s the model (me) and not the camera’s fault. LOL.

HDR-ART mode is highly addictive as anything can be photographed with unexpected colour results. I love taking a photo in this mode and then waiting for the image to be processed in the camera. The wait is like unwrapping a present because I don’t know what to expect of the outcome. And because I cannot predict what a photo will look like, it spurs me to try shooting everything and be spontaneous.

To me, that’s what photography should be and all about… spontaneity, having fun and breaking free from photographic traditions. With HDR-ART, we could just very well be the next Andy Warhol!

For more photos taken with the camera, please visit my album A Month with Casio Exilim ZR100.

HDR Made REALLY Easy with EX-ZR100

When taking photographs, I constantly face a problem I term as the “blank and dull sky syndrome” (BADSS). This photographic “illness” infects photos taken when the sky lacks contrast or when the camera metered a darker area in a scene and compensate by making the whole photograph appear brighter.

As the entire photo becomes brighter, details in already bright areas in the scene get lost. Typically, it’s the sky that gets sacrificed and becomes white-washed or dull. Here’s an example of a photo suffering from BADSS…

Taken with Casio Exilim ZR100′s Auto Mode (a.k.a. Normal Mode in some cameras). Location : Orchard Central Roof Garden.

 

The day that I took this photo, it was grey and overcast with mild clouding due to an impending rain. The lack of light striking the foreground subjects (the colourful sculptures and garden) also made them appear darker in contrast to the sky.

So in order to make the foreground subjects brighter, the camera compensated with a higher exposure but that caused the sky to be brighter too and it lost all details and looks blank in the photo. All cameras function this way in Auto / Normal mode, including powerful DSLRs, and are susceptible to the BADSS plague.

Is there something that can be done about it? Yes. The solution is High Dynamic Range (HDR) imaging technique. Here’s a photo of the same scene taken with a HDR function…

Taken with Casio Exilim ZR100′s one-touch HDR Mode.

 

Notice how the sky appears in the photo now. Doesn’t the photo look better and more attractive? But wait till you see this…

Taken with Casio Exilim ZR100′s one-touch HDR-Art Mode.

 

Not only does the sky appears, the colours of the scene is also made more vibrant and really jumps at you! Now, ALL PHOTOS appearing in this post ARE WITHOUT ANY PHOTOSHOP OR IMAGING ENHANCEMENTS.

For those of you in the know of HDR photography, you know it is a valuable technique to get an evenly exposed photo. But you also know the hassle that this technique requires. For those of you who are unfamiliar with the growing popularity of HDR, I shall attempt to share what I’ve learnt and why Casio Exilim ZR100 really takes the pain out of HDR imaging.

What is HDR Imaging?

The technique of creating a single photo from multiple photos first appeared in the 1850s when a French photographer, Gustave Le Gray, combined several seascape photos with extreme luminosities into 1 picture.

Today, this technique has evolved into HDR (also known as HDRI, High Dynamic Range Imaging, with some camera and videocam makers) and is basically a technique used to create an evenly exposed photo in situations where there are high lighting contrasts.

Some of these situations include taking a photo when facing the sun causing the foreground to appear dark while the sky is very bright (gradual contrast) or taking a photo with a sharp lighting contrast (eg. capturing details of a dim room with the bright scene outside its windows).

How is a HDR Shot Acheived?

Traditionally, and this is how I was taught to get a HDR photo with a DSLR, I must first own a stable tripod. I must fix my camera on the tripod, lock it to the composition I want then take 5 shots of the same scene by varying the Exposure Value (EV). This is to underexpose (-EV) the scene to capture the sky and overexposing (+EV) the scene to capture the foreground subjects.

After the tripod set-up is complete, I’ll proceed to take a photo each at -2EV, -1EV, Normal Exposure (0EV), +1EV and +2EV. After that, I’ll combine all the 5 shots into 1 photo with an imaging software. Here’s an example of what I would do to get a HDR image using a DSLR…

Effects of varying the EV value to get a HDR shot. The lower EV values give the sky a richer colour while the higher EV values capture details of the merlion. Location : Merlion Park.

 

Final HDR image after combining all of the above 5 photos in Photoshop. It took about 5 minutes of work to import and process the shots for this photo.

 

Getting a HDR image with a DSLR is a lot of work! That’s the reason why I never quite caught on with this technique because I’ll need to lug a tripod around whenever I go, spend time setting up, get a HDR imaging software such as Photomatix (before Photoshop came out with in-built HDR capability), and spend time processing the image.

Get a HDR Photo in 5 Seconds

But thanks to Casio Exilim ZR100, getting a HDR image is made so, so, so much easier! With just a turn on the camera’s dial, I could activate the HDR mode and in one click, get an evenly exposed photo like this…

Handheld HDR photo without the need to set-up a tripod. The image’s colour range and quality is comparable to what I got with the traditional method using a DSLR.

 

The EX-ZR100′s HDR function really saves time, effort and money to get an evenly exposed shot. Better yet, try the camera’s HDR-Art mode which saturates the colours even further to boomz the hues like this…

Sunrise at Merlion Park with Casio Exilim ZR100′s one-touch HDR-Art mode.

 

With both the HDR and HDR-Art mode, it takes under 5 seconds for the camera to snap and process the image. What the camera does is that with 1 click in these 2 modes, it rapidly fires 5 shots with different EVs and then combines them into a single photo within the camera’s body. There’s no need for external softwares to do it. I can’t believe how easy it is!

Other Scenarios to Use EX-ZR100′s HDR Mode

Apart from the Orchard Central Roof Garden and Merlion Park examples which demonstrated the use of HDR mode during gradual and sharp lighting contrasts, here are some other situations in which the HDR and HDR-Art modes will come in handy…

Trying to capture the sun in Auto Mode resulted in a diffused bright spot that doesn’t show the relationship between the tree and its source of sustenance.

 

With the HDR and HDR-Art modes, the sun appears as defined circle of light that brings life to the foliage.

 

HDR and HDR-Art modes are great for capturing under-bridge scenes. Loved the blue sky peering between this pair of highway bridges in Bangkok but couldn’t capture it in Auto Mode. When I switched to the HDR Mode, voilà the strip of blue appears!

 

Used the HDR Mode to photograph this perspective below the Esplanade Bridge to show details under the bridge and its sides.

 

I pass by this scene under the CTE Expressway (Moulmein Road exit) on my way to work each time and love the atmospheric perspective. It was a particularly sunny day when this photo was taken with the street scene beyond the bridge made visible with the HDR Mode.

 

From under bridges, let’s go above. This photo was taken at Bangkok’s Mo Chit BTS Station. The HDR Mode allows the gloriously blue sky and darker in-station platform to be evenly exposed.

 

With the usefulness of the HDR Mode, it’s tempting to just photograph everything in this mode but I would use it with caution because of the following reasons :

1) As each click of the camera’s trigger in HDR or HDR-Art mode fires 5 shots, battery life gets drained pretty quickly.

2) Sometimes having a contrast in lighting is good to convey mood, such as the effective use of silhouettes, rather than having every detail visible.

3) The camera takes a couple of seconds to process each HDR shot so there’s a down time and not suitable for shooting high speed action shots.

4) When overdone, HDR shots can appear fake and look unappealing.

I hope this post gives you a good idea about HDR imaging and what Casio Exilim ZR100 can do. Again, I would like to emphasize that NO PHOTOSHOP PROCESSING has been done on the photos here except for resizing, adding my shameless self-promotional blog address and combining the 5 DSLR shots into a single HDR photo.

For more photos taken with the camera, please visit my album A Month with Casio Exilim ZR100.

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