HDR photographs (1)

Normal Exposure

You may be wondering what HDR (HDRI) photography is all about. HDR, to give it its full name is High Dynamic Range and is sometimes also referred to as High Dynamic Range Imaging. HDR is a technique used in stills photography to reproduce a greater dynamic range of luminosity (tonal range) than is possible using standard digital  photographic techniques.

Over Exposed

HDR images are created by capturing and then combining together different exposures of the same subject matter. You can create HDR images with any digital camera by photographing the same scene two or more times. By using different exposures values for each image taken. 

Under Exposed

In this example I have taken three photographs. One is normally exposed using the cameras standard settings. The second one is over exposed by overriding the standards settings and increasing the exposure time. The third one is under exposed in the same way by reducing the standard speed.

Combined Images

Standard cameras can only take photographs within a limited exposure range. Resulting in the loss of detail in bright or dark areas. The HDR techniques compensates for this loss of detail by capturing multiple photographs and then combining the images together to produce a photograph representative of a much broader tonal range.

After the images have been combined together to give increased detail in the highlights and shadows. Its possible to fine tune the HDR settings to give a much more appealing look and feel to the photographs.

At the same time its also possible to remove items from the finished image. In this example I have removed overhead power lines and also removed several other items and their corresponding reflections in the water. At that point I added a watermark identifying ownership of the copywrite of the image.

To be continued in HDR photographs (2)