HDR madness

I was a little worried posting this today as i'm not sure what kind of reaction it'll get.

This merit assignment19 for two reasons; 1 its a HDR thingy and 2 its a sunrise and i am not a morning person and rarely get to see them (just so happens i was nightshift and saw it on the way home)

there was some interesting discussion yesterday on the fool's and Sly's entries in relation to HDR.

Now i am not expert but i have done a little research into this and have decided to dabble a wee bit.

The basic idea behind HDR is to capture in a single image all the detail that would otherwise be lost in a single exposure due to the camera only being able to expose one part of the image correctly. This is done by either bracketing shots or taking one exposure and setting the exposure values to produce differently exposed versions of the shot to merge.
This of course can led to all sorts of problems with the subject moving during exposure etc

This image is done using the latter method, one image opened in photoshop and levels adjusted to produce an over and under exposed image and merged in photoshop .I have no idea if this is the correct way to do it but as I'm using a P&S and don't really know what i'm doing it'll do for now.

The 'strange' effect is created using the tone mapping part of the program which is basically a bunch of sliders that you adjust till you get an image your happy with.

This image is not me trying to produce a 'good' image but more of a demonstration of the effects achievable.

I've edited the image a couple of times now and am a little happier with it.

Your thoughts are appreciated, Is it good? Is it Mince? is it even photography?


Links For HDR:
Photomatix
HDR tutorial
Another HDR tutorial


-stevie-