Another Photomatix Pro test. This one wasn't shot with HDR in mind, but I had three different exposures of the scene so I decided to try to blend them. They were only 1 or 2 stops apart in total though, so the dynamic range wasn't as great as it should have been. As a result the dark areas suffered from really bad noise and posterisation (you can see it next to the street lights on the right hand side). Had I planned this as an HDR shot I'd have taken a wider range of exposures and composed the tables better (the foreground is pretty much black in the normal photo).
Another problem was that since the clouds were moving they didn't match up perfectly. One solution for this might be to take the three exposures using auto-exposure bracketing using mirror lock and fired by the cable release. This would take all three shots in quick succession with no breaks between them. It wouldn't stop the clouds blurring but it may give a smoother blend in the sky.
As with certain other Photomatix shots, the colours are artificially boosted. I tried reducing the saturation setting and got a very dark and moody "half-monochromatic" shot (sky was practically monochrome) which I really liked, but most people seem to prefer colourful photos so I thought I'd show you what it looked like at the normal saturation setting.
