Creating HDRI Images?

[Ken Walton]

Before anyone jumps to tell me about the search feature or the plethora of useful links in the three results the this site returns - I've used it and viewed them. I've been through about half of the links and have been visiting sites all morning, but I still haven't found a solid instructions on how to start creating these. I understand the concept and the process behind it, but before I go and try this myself, I was just wondering if anyone here has photographed and created their own images using the available info. If so, my main questions are:

 

1) Can I acheive reasonable results with a 3-megapixel digital camera, and how many exposure settings does it require?

 

2) Where do you get the mirrored balls? I haven't noticed them at Wal-mart or anything and the nearest professional photo shop isn't too close. Does anyone have a guerilla method they've used to some avail?

 

3) If you have created your own images, are they useful enough for a real project? How did you learn the steps necessary to get started?

 

Anyway, I'll appreciate any solid advice anyone could give - or a link to a site that assumes you have no real idea what you need to get started (kind of a HDRI for dummies site). If nobody knows of one, please let me know if they're worth the time and effort of digging through what's out there to learn how to create them.

 

Thanks in advance,

Ken Walton

[STRAT]

been here? http://interpolation.virtualave.net/makehdr/default_en.htm

[Ken Walton]

Thanks Strat - that's the best one so far. But honestly, are they just something cool to do, or are they really useful?

[STRAT]

is HDRI useful or not?

 

imho it's fairly useless. a load of hot air and techno speak.

 

Image based lighting rendering is a very important aspect of lighting thesedays, but there's no need for it to involve HDRI.

 

And i've yet to see anybody put a HDRI component to it's proper use.

 

so no, a waste of time.