I've been playing just a tad with HDR photography, and I'd like to know what you guys think I can do better.

First shot is just normal, single exposure, nominally exposed, second one is bracketed HDR.

I'd love any criticism you guys are willing to give.

Thanks!

First shot is ok, but though the big dark shadow has that sort of 'serene' look to it allowing you to focus further down the valley, it just looks like a poor shot.

The shot that you used to take the shadow out, it just doesn't look natural to me for some reason. A photo should be almost just as you saw it in reallife imo. The foreground in the 2nd picture is kinda saturated in a way that it looks like post-editing. Naturally things in the foreground will look saturated or hazy, but not like that.

Think about the subject when you are taking landscape shots. The canyons are tall and so are the trees. A vertical shot would suit this photo a lot more, because you could capture more sky. (Best to have more blue sky showing through (or sky in general with low cloud count). If you still want a normal portrait style photo, and want to show more of the canyon, I suggest a fisheye lense of some kind, with a polarizer or some filter to darken the shades up and give more rich feel.

I am kind of the same. The second image, with hdr, looks more painting like if that makes sense. Just the light quality is well off it has lost the natural look.

Exposure wise the normal one is good. Nice quality and depth to the shadow but the image is missing focus. I assume you selected the shot for shadows to show the effect more than the shot itself.

I think once you lost the deep shadow all the depth and the dynamics of the picture was lost and you ended up with a flat 2d image which looks like a painting but without any depth. I'd stick with the first one. Image effects have to remain very subtle or they easily look forced or too false, unless of course, that is your goal.

Some good examples here.

If it was the green Countryside of Scotland, im sure it would look better ANYWAY tho, imo

First thing I thought of when looking at the 2nd shot was "MS Flight Simulator X looks pretty darn good". I'm not a photography expert, so.... Was just my first thought when I viewed it.

It's tough to be a photographer critic when other people's cell phones are better cameras than your own digital camera .

i think the problem here is that the background on the second pic looks darker and duller than the foreground which is actually in the shadow (the background darker than in the first pic which shouldnt be the case)

Quote from Shotglass :

i think the problem here is that the background on the second pic looks darker and duller than the foreground which is actually in the shadow (the background darker than in the first pic which shouldnt be the case)

Thanks for the comments guys, I agree, it is a bit over the top, but I kinda liked the wow effect.

The background in the second picture is darker because it's actually not the same shot, the second shot is actually a mix of 3 different photos, one correctly exposed, one taken at one stop under, and one taken at one stop over.

I do like the HDRI effect, but that is a bit much.

First of all... could somebody explain to me what HDR photography is?

Second... i think the major mistake in both pictures is that the tree on the left was not "cut"/left out when taking the picture. The shadow is not helping either in my opinion. There would have been better positions to take the photo probably.

Getting too technical about a photo does ruin it anyway...
In my opinion, simply look at your picture yourself... if you like it, fine... if you don't, move on.

Quote from 96 GTS :

The background in the second picture is darker because it's actually not the same shot, the second shot is actually a mix of 3 different photos, one correctly exposed, one taken at one stop under, and one taken at one stop over.

i know but the result should be a slightly overexposed looking background and a slighly underexposed looking foreground while your pic has the effect reversed