HDR doesn't work

[Clemens25278346v0ay]

Hi everyone,

already searched the forum but non of the threads really fits or worked for me.

Today I updated LR Classic to 11.4.1 and imported some pictures. Afterwards I wanted to create some HDR and also some Panorama. Unfortunatley always when I try to merge 3 pictures (Sony Alpha 7M3 DRO) I receive an error that the 3 pictures cannot be merged. 

A few weeks ago the function worked fine and since then I only updated LR an imported new pictures. Already tried to create a new catalouge but the problem is still the same.

Anybody with the same issue?

Kind regards

[JohanElzenga]

Do the images have different exposures? You can't merge just any three pictures to HDR, they need to have three different exposures (and not the same exposure with three different ISO settings, for example).

[Clemens25278346v0ay]

Hi, 

I use the bracketing function of my camera which creates 3 pictures. I uploaded an example to dropbox (https://www.dropbox.com/sh/2tqupasvsav9vpx/AADRZhxHXKG7issTlyAP3pQja?dl=0)

In the past it all worked fine.

[JohanElzenga]

Something went wrong with that camera setting. All three photos have the exact same exposure: 1/320 sec, F5.0 and ISO 100.

[Clemens25278346v0ay]

Thats correct. But they all have diffrent EV (-0.3, 0.0 and +0.3). And as mentioned, I already made several HDRs with LR with the same camera settings befor without any problem. 

Any other idea?

[JohanElzenga]

You don't understand how HDR works. It doesn't matter that the images have different EV. It's the actual exposure that counts, and the actual exposure is identical for all three images. Apparently 0.3 EV was too little for the camera to even change the settings between the exposures. That is why Lightroom doesn't want to merge them. 

If you make an exposure bracket series, then do not use just 0.3 EV difference between the shots, use at least 1.0 EV. The recommended difference for Lightroom HDR exposures is 2.0 EV difference and three shots.

[JohanElzenga]

P.S. Even if 0.3 EV does work in some cases because the camera does indeed change the exposure, then it still does not make sense to use this. A series of three images with 0.3EV difference will create a merged image that has 0.6EV more dynamic range than a single image. That is not HDR, that is so marginal that it will seldom do anything that you can't do with a single exposure.