The bracketed shooting option isn’t there in my app. I’ve tried looking for a newer version of the app, I’ve got the latest firmware downloaded on my SC2 and the option still isn’t there.
I’ve looked online and seen other people on Reddit saying the same thing, that the bracketed shot option simply isn’t there.
Either way, this is beside the point to be honest. The “HDR” mode on the app isn’t a true HDR and any HDR aspect of it is killed when its saved as an 8bit JPEG. I have tried multiple times now to make a HDRI from the images I’ve taken on the SC2 but no matter what, its impossible to make a true HDRI with the format of the source images. I’ll show you my exact process and the underlying issue with the whole thing.
Taking multiple shots at different exposure values:
Since the bracketed shot option isn’t showing up for me, I have just been doing this manually. To start out with, I would take photos in HDR mode with he EV set going from -2, -1.7, -1.3, -1, -0.7, -0.3, 0, 0.3, 0.7, 1, 1.3, 1.7 and 2.
Here are said images;
[grid]
(There was a couple more here but they messed up when uploading and you get the point.)
I would then import all of these images into Luminance HDR to combine into a HDRI, this is where you can see the first issue.
Here you can see that the exposure range is heavily compressed because of the source images format (8Bit JPEG) which holds no real light information. While Luminance HDR might export as a 32bit EXR, it doesn’t make a difference since it never had the light information it needed to begin with.
When these HDRIs are imported to blender, they wrap around the world (which they would anyway as long as your environment is set up right) but there is no real light information being displayed anywhere. Reflections work as intended but that’s simply because the image is wrapped around the world, any image would do this.
HDRI with those images above;
HDRI with completely different lighting but made the same way;
Another with different lighting, done the same way;
I then tried to take all of my images NOT in HDR mode, but in manual and that was exactly the same and that was IF it let me export the final image from Luminance to EXR because sometimes, it only wanted to export as a JPEG or a PNG, which again, isn’t a HDR.
I just don’t understand why this camera has a “HDR” mode if its not actually taking a HDR? In theory, its doing all the correct steps, taking 4 photos at different exposure values and merging them. However, this camera will only save in a format that then makes it impossible to be an actual HDR? I really hope this is a matter of me doing something wrong, but that being said, I’ve worked with HDRs for a while now and no matter what I try to do, I can’t get the image to act as a real HDR because the camera isn’t capable of taking HDR photos! If I knew the camera could only save images as 8bit JPEGs, I wouldn’t have gotten it. If you want a 360 camera with an “okay” quality, there are plenty of others out there, cheaper that do just that without claiming to do one thing it literally isn’t capable of doing. I would say this falls down to “its my fault for not looking into this camera enough” but I did! I saw the HDR mode and manual settings and assumed that surely they wouldn’t force an image format on you that completely negates the point in a HDR.