Project365 - Explaining HDR

Introduction

Over the past few entries, I have dabbled a little with High Dynamic Range (HDR). I've had a couple of people ask me what it is, so I thought I'd pause for a moment and explain it. So this blog entry will be a little different.

The Setup

As usual, my camera is a Canon 60D, and I am using a 70-200mm f/4 L for the lens. I SHOULD have used a tripod, to insure the images were framed identically, and free of camera shake. I compensated for the potential shake by driving up the shutter speed to about 1/1000th of a second. I would have to let the HDR software deal with any misalignment.

Many DSLRs have a setting called Automatic Exposure Bracketing. On my camera, it is adjustable in the settings. It will automatically set up three exposures - one at the correct exposure (0EV), and then two more - one under-exposed and one under-exposed. In my case it was 1 and 1/3 stops. So my settings were -1.3EV, 0EV and +1.3EV.

My camera body also has the ability to shoot about six frames per second. So I set it up to shoot multiple images with a single click of the shutter, in high speed succession. So I could take all three pictures required for the HDR software in one shot.

The software, Photomatix, can take up to nine source images to create the final image, but three is sufficient for basic work.

The Photos

Here is the first photo at -1.3EV. It is very dark, and shows a bit of contrast.

 

 

At 0EV, we have a properly exposed image, which looks a little flat !

 

 

 

At +1.3 EV, it's very bright, but we start to lose the shadows & contrast.

 

 

 

The final photo, produced with an application called Photomatix, blends the three images together. You see all the details of the darker areas, while maintaining the contrast and details of the brighter areas.

Lessons Learned

I'm not sure I like HDR in landscape photography. As we have seen, it makes a final photograph look faked. I do like the process, and how it really accentuates architecture, for example. Once again, I got caught between always having a camera nearby, but not my tripod. But when an opportunity presents itself, you just gotta make the best of it ! Maybe I should just carry all my gear with me - I'd get a workout along with the photographs !