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Best HDRI's to buy?


Mike T
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Hey gang,

 

I'm about to start purchasing HDRI's and I had a question. I've been going back and forth between getting the DOSCH DESIGN hdri's and the SACHFORM Tech. hdri's. The Sachform HDRI's (HDRI vol.3 for example) have backgrounds which contains many different color textures and buildings while the Dosch stuff (Skies) is just plain skieswith many different settings like evenings and what not.

 

I know that it depends of your scene, but which one would you want as a starter for your HDRI library?

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Guess what? It really depends on your scene.

If you wanna render cars and smaller objets you could go for both but i would prefer materials buildings skyscraper reflection kind'a look. If architecture i would go for pure skies. Ive got dosch skies hdri's.

 

There is an alternate way to get hdri's. In e-on sowtware Vue 6 you can make your own skies and enviroment and export it as hdri - check out their web page and demo if you like.

 

cheers

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Your best answer is all of them. The hyperfocal ones are great, Scahform, and Dosch... and whoever elese has one. The main thing that matters (when it comes to lighting is two things). Size and depth. Size is how big your image is. Fort a good solid reflection in an object you only really need 4k. However, if you are planning on using it as a background image, you willned a lot more. However, the most important thing when dealign with diffuse IBL lighting (via the dome light) is depth. You want an HDR with lots and lots of stops. Tha will give you sharp shadows and high contrast lighting. Most of the very early HDRs were only around 6 to 8 stops. Some of the new ones done with Sphereons, or the super high quality hyperfocal ones, have many more stops... like 16 or 20. That is how you can get such sharp shadows and directional lighting.

 

I would say set aside money for one every month of two and start a library. Once you library is full... start making your own.... :)

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Chris Nicholls, You mentioned the amount of stops of light being a big factor in how much depth is in the HDRI. If the HDRI has been built with 20 stops, is this a big difference to being built from 10x2 stops. So in other words, the range is the same (same maximum and minimum exposure), but the camera has been moved 2 f-stops on each shot.

I ask because Ive made a couple myself, but ive only been doing 10x1 stops.

Thanks,

Tom.

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I'm not sure I know what you are talking about. Are you talking about skipping stops? Not really a good idea. Generally you want to have every stop recorded. If you are recording in raw format, with lets say a canon in cr2 format, that format actually records about 3 stops of data per shot, and saves the data linearly so no data is crunched from the sRGB conversion. Technically, you could skip stops using that method. However, I have found (as have most people that I talked to that try this) that taking a lot of jpgs actually works very well. Just don't skip stops. It also helps if you can take those pictures as fast as possible since cloud movement between shots is a problem.

 

Chris Nicholls, You mentioned the amount of stops of light being a big factor in how much depth is in the HDRI. If the HDRI has been built with 20 stops, is this a big difference to being built from 10x2 stops. So in other words, the range is the same (same maximum and minimum exposure), but the camera has been moved 2 f-stops on each shot.

I ask because Ive made a couple myself, but ive only been doing 10x1 stops.

Thanks,

Tom.

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