Happy Holidays from HDRLabs & friends!

I was pulling a bunch of levers and scored some amazing deals for you. Most of them you won't find anywhere else. All together, this is a total savings of $151.49. It's like Christmas!

What's the catch?

Well, to qualify for these rebates you need to own the HDRI Handbook, either the English
or the German edition.
Considering a cover price of $32.97 (or €49.00) on Amazon, you basically get the HDRI Handbook for free when you buy two of these programs. If you already have the book, you can type in the password on the software links page and start saving right away...

Many thanks to all the participating developers for making these great offers available:
AGS Technik, Creaceed, db&w, HDRSoft, Imaging Luminary, and MediaChance. You guys rock!

PS: I should mention that these coupon codes are not retroactive. That means, they are only valid when you buy a software now, they DO NOT qualify for a refund if you previously bought any of the software packages. Duh!

... for December's update.

That's because I was on my Annual Thanksgiving Roadtrip, this time across Arizona, Utah and Nevada. Shot tons of awesome panos, and now I'm loaded with material for the year to come. Check out the brand new sIBL-of-the-month, shot on the highway 163 heading towards Monument Valley!

BTW - I tonemapped this set with the new FDR Tools 2.2, and I gotta say: FDR Tools really has turned into a powerhouse! Noteworthy features are:

• xDOF Merging: Combines images with different focus into one HDR with extended depth of field. (Haven't tried it yet, but sounds great).
• Project-based workflow, where you can set up a template for every step and run it as a batch.
• Curves !!! I love Curves to death! The ultimate power tool for post-processing, now attached to every tonemapper. Check out this screenshot of total tone control:

And with FDR Tool's proven ICC color management, this is really an app for professionals.

What else is new here?

I've updated the software list to include Hydra, Essential HDR and indispensable plugins like EXR Trader, Pro EXR and Flexify. Also, you can now filter for PC or Mac.
Actually, the entire site framework has been refurbished. Not that this should matter to you - except for all links now fading on rollover (uh, oh) - but it will be much easier for me now to create some advanced pages. And believe me, I have some pretty awesome things on my list already...

Blochi

Now you have one more reason to get a shiny iPhone.

That's because the mobile edition of HDRLabs is now online. Quick forum access on-the-go, Kirt Witte's awesome Tips&Tricks, even the handy Pano Calculator are there - right in your pocket. iPhones and iPods are automatically referred to www.mobile.hdrlabs.com, other devices you'll have to point there yourself.

If you're chained to your desktop, make sure to check out this preview page!

More sIBL-sets than you can eat!

Finally we have a proper archive, where all free sIBL-sets are collected in one spot. Not only will you find all past sIBL-of-the-months there, but also new contributions from our friends at HDR-VFX and Chris Huf. I dare to say this is the biggest free HDR collection in general, at least at this level of quality.

Happy Halloween, my friends!

A fresh wind is blowing through HDRLabs.

His name is Kirt Witte, he is a Professor of Visual Effects, and he contributed a great FAQ on all things HDR. While we're at it, I threw in a tutorial on embedding HDR images on a website (as seen on the infamous sIBL-of-the-month release pages), and my very first screencast on sIBL-Edit. Thus, the tutorial section is now officially open - certainly with much more cool content to come...

Reopened is the Hot on Flickr gallery. It's been down for a while because someone pointed out some flaws that wouldn't comply with Flickr's TOS. Specifically, the attribution wasn't as clear as it should be, and it was also pulling too many images from Flickr on a single page. I was wrestling the site code really hard, and now it gives full credit to the amazing people that make these images. As it should be. This gallery is meant to be a "Hall of Fame", providing exposure for the best HDR shooters on Flickr. And I fully agree, there can't be too much attribution given here.

Many more things have come up in the past weeks, and I haven't told you anything about my findings at Photokina yet. Will do this in the posts to follow, now that the site is back in good shape.

Christian Bloch

Canon just won't make us HDR shooters happy.

They instist on the ridiculous 3-frame bracketing, even on the brand new EOS 5D Mark II. Apparently they consider HDR photography a serious pro feature, and keep larger brackets exclusive to the flagship EOS 1Ds. How lame is that? The rest of us have to refer to Kirt's Cheat Sheet to shoot several overlapping brackets, or carry a laptop for shooting tethered.

But fear not - Steve Chapman has just invented HDR bracketing in style!

Using a Nintendo DS and a custom-built interface cartridge you can fire any set of exposure bracket. It also features a timelapse timer, a darkroom-safe nightvision skin, and sound-activated "clapper mode". This is software such an ingenious idea, because the DS is essentially a low power consumption, fully graphical interface computer with a touchscreen and a microphone. And it runs Super Mario Kart. And it's way cheaper than the iphone. What could be better suited for remote controlling your camera?

If you want this sweet thing to be yours, I suggest you'd shoot Steve an email right away.
Read all about this project on Steve's blog.