I enjoy photography, although I would not venture that I am good at it, yet. I have some tools, some books and like to get out and about to places that typically tend to be photogenic. One of the interesting techniques I have recently admired is called HDR, or High Dynamic Range, photography. In its most basic form, HDR photography offers the ability to demonstrate a wider range of detail than most digital cameras can capture (simply due to sensor characteristics). The human eye is capable of seeing more than a camera can capture.
The basic approach is to take multiple pictures with the exposure bracketed so that you take under-exposed, over-exposed and normally exposed images. I use software to "compile" the images into one HDR image. You can apply additional treatments to the image with a good photo editing program, if desired.
I have a couple examples of my work that I am happy with. I recently bought a book and have read up on the technique, and I know that my earlier attempts were misguided and would not produce the desired results because my settings were wrong. Makes me excited for the results I might get with correct settings. Below is my "before" and "after" images of a nice fall setting down the street from my house. I took three photos (although at the time I was just changing exposures to try to get one decent photo). One thing to note is the additional detail in the previously shaded areas.
Any thoughts you have are appreciated.
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| This is the original, normal exposure I took. |
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| This is the HDR image that was produced from three different exposures of the image. |
3 comments:
I like the depth it adds to the sky.
Skies with clouds really come alive with HDR. The nice thing about HDR is that you have a lot of flexibility with the end result.
One little trick that I often use is to go back to my RAW image and save different versions by adjusting the exposure a stop or two in both directions and then use those to create the final image. This comes in handy when I don't have a tripod to take multiple exposures.
It looks like you're off to a good start!
I took the pictures used in this HDR before I read my book. Go figure - no patience, I guess. Anyway, I did just about everything wrong. I took them in JPEG format, bracketed the exposure but didn't fix the aperture and ISO values, etc. In short, wasn't really looking ahead. Now that I have read a little bit, I am anxious to get back out and try it again. Now if only the sun would stay out long enough :)
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