High Dynamic Range (HDR) Photography



One of the drawbacks of recording an image is that the end result is often not quite how you remember taking it. All too often, there are little or no details in the shadows, or the highlights are too bright.

Bracketing the subject (taking a series of exposures ranging from dark to light) can sometimes help but is all too often a compromise solution.

When I processed my own photographs, I would often use "burning in" and "dodging" techniques to either give more or hold back details.

Recently, I have begun to experiment with HDR, or High Dynamic Range photography. This is a method of taking three (or sometimes more) images of the same subject from bright to dark. The darker images normally render the highlights correctly, the overexposed image will show details in the shadows and the normally exposed image will render midtones correctly. Using a programme such as the popular Photomatix or Dynamic Photo HDR (my choice) or the free FDR Tools, one can merge all three images into one to create an image more akin to what the eye sees. The programme that I use also has the option to make an "HDR" type image from only one original photo.

Using techniques such as tone mapping, one can drastically change the appearance of an image. Lots of examples to be found online have garish colours and bear no resemblance whatsoever to the scene recorded.

At the moment , I'm using my HDR programme to try render a scene as faithfully as when I first saw it.

Here are two galleries. The first one shows "Fake" HDR images from only one source file (as opposed to three. I used the Dynamic Photo HDR programme (see above)which has a "Fake It Till You Make It" option.

The second gallery displays images created with three source files. In this case RAW data from my Eos 5d.





Single image
"HDR" files		 Multi image
HDR files






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©2006 tom waugh























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