90d too dark in HDR

[Jlames]

I’m really having issues with the 90d In-camera HDR. My subject is an interior room in afternoon light with large windows for natural light. Using a manual lens, I’m setting up for AV assuming if I set the ISO to 100 and the f-stop to 8, I’ll only need to be concerned with shutter speed. Using spot metering, I note that the dark is coming in at 0”8 and the bright is at 1/5, I’ve set up for both 3 and 5-shots at +-2ev and the resulting hdr image in both shots come out well-exposed for the highlights but too dark in the remaining areas. Am I doing something wrong or is the hdr function known for this?

Sent from my iPad

[kvbarkley]

Actually, your image looks pretty good. Nothing lost in the shadows and no blown highlights.

[Jlames]

Yes but I'm not going for "pretty good". I didn't buy the camera for that; I bought it for "excellent". To me, there's not enough light. Nothing is crisp and clean. Nothing pops. It's a startk-white kitchen, at least it will be when we're finished, and it looks like a dimly-lit old room.

[jrhoffman75]

Did you read all the info on page 254?

Instead of using the built-in tool switch to Auto Exposure Bracketing (AEB), page 211, and try that. You can select a wider range.

Do you use a photo editing tool like Lightroom? You can merge the images you take in the software.

Are you on a tripod?

Can you turn on any interior lights to reduce the brightness difference between indoors and out?

Try this experiment - turn the camera vertical (portrait mode) and just frame the kitchen. then the only bright source will be the windows. See what that gives you.

[Jlames]

I'm working with the AEB settings now on the red and the orange tabe. On 3 shots orange tab and AEB set 3-stops (actually I suppose that's 6-stops) I'm getting opne that's passable at the bright, a second that's useless (too dark) and a 3rd that's perfect for the windows. I'm going tom try 5 shots to fill in the missing areas and see if that helps but it begs the question, if probvably rhettorically; if the 3 shots I'm getting manually at 3/6stops difference gives me a passable on the bright end and great windows on the other with junk inbetween, why doesn't the camea choose the two on the outside to use in HDR instead of the middle and the window shots that gives me junk?

[Jlames]

OK, switching from 3 to 5 shots gave me the same two in the middle as before but put a really blown-out shot and a totally dark shot on the ends, this imnstead of using the additional shots to fill in the middle. All iot did was put two extremes on the ends!

[jrhoffman75]

The camera is simply taking three images and combining them with some algorithms. It doesn't know what is most important to you. 

Do you have editing software that you use.

If you want to put the three RAW files into Dropbox and post the link here I will see what can be done.

[Jlames]

I onkly see 189 pages in the manual, yes I've been using Lightroom, Photoishop, Final Cut and 3dVista forever, yes on the interior lights but it doesn't help much and I'll try the last one next.

[jrhoffman75]

At a constant aperture halving or doubling is one f/stop. 4,8, 15, 30, 60 is 5 f/stops.

[Jlames]

OK and where do I get the other 2 stops?

[jrhoffman75]

Its +-, so +-2 is a 4 stop range.

And, there are going to be conditions where even +-3 isn’t enough.