Natural History Museum LA

Natural History Museum LA, a photo by Tony DeSantis Photography on Flickr.

I know some are not big fans of HDR. But when you walk into a room such as this what is your best way to capture it? For some I guess it would be to capture as is and let the lighting, textures and shades fall as is. The small hand hand held mini's try for a flash and walk away disappointed. For those who shoot HDR this is a dream come true. Textures, marble, lighting all move the imagination. I personally don't think there is any other way to do this room justice without HDR.
The other issue we have is "The NO Tripod rule". So here we are shooting a Pano HDR, multi upon multi shots hand held. For this shot...18 exposures. Let me explain:
I went with my family to the Natural History museum and knowing that no tripods were permitted, flashes only create bad reflections, and I really didn't like hauling around a backpack. I decided to go with my cheap lens, the 50mm 1.8. Best $100 lens on the books bar none!
The fast lens helped with some shutter speeds that were manageable. Yes the 1.8 doesn't create for great depth of field but hey with life there are always trade offs.
With that all said, you can see the final outcome. Your feed back is greatly appreciated.
Here is my Post Processing, it maybe a little long...sorry

Pano HDR in Camera:
>6 vertical 3 Exposure (+1, 0, -1) Total 18 Exposures, 1/30-1/60-1/125, 50mm, ISO 800
I did a 1EV spread because pushing a 2EV spread would have been hard at the +2 to hold without blur

1st Part of Post Processing:
>Each 3 Segment Vertical brought into Raw
>Black slider to 0, White Balance and Temperature and Tint matched
>Default Sharpening to 0
>Noise Reduction on all
>Saved as Tiffs
>Any Exposures that had to much movement were deleted and replaced by one of the other exposures at the deleted exposures EV.
>Once finished you should have 18 tiff files

Photomatix-Detail Enhancer:
>1st 3 shot Segment brought into Photomatix
>Sliders moved to taste and saved as 16 bit tiffs
>Each additional 3 shot segment brought into Photomatix, since Photomatix saves
previous settings, each panel would get the same settings by default of previous settings and saved.
>Once all 18 shots/6 segments are processed you will end up with 6 panels of the Pano all as 16 bit tiffs.

CS-5:
>All 6 HDR Tiffs brought into CS-5
>1 Panel at a time, starting with the 2nd panel CMD-A (Select All), CMD-C (Copy), CMD-W (Delete)
>Back to 1st panel, CMD-V (Paste),
>Same process for all 5 panels stacked onto the 1st panel
>Choose 1st layer (Background Layer)
>Shift/Click on the Last Layer (5th Layer) Should choose them all
>EDIT-Auto Align Layers, Wait for processing to finish
>EDIT-Auto Blend Layers, Wait for processing to finish
>Flatten Image
>Save Image but don't delete (You save image in the event you mess up somewhere or your CS-5 closes
>Crop or Duplicate and Free Transform to get rid of any white areas

2nd Stage Post Processing:
>Nik Color Efex Pro-Pro Contrast
>Nik Color Efex Pro-Tonal Contrast
>Topaz Adjust-inFocus for global sharpening
>Shadow/highlights-For middle statue alone
>Adjustment Layer Levels-Remove color cast of yellow
>Adjustment Layer Curves-Slight global Contrast
>Left Segment of pillars duplicated, Transform/Flip Vertical and aligned on floor
>Soft Light Mode/ Opacity to choice
>Redo until you move across entire floor with a nice reflection
>Cropped and Framed for posting