This is an HDR image taken by a friend of mine. HDR is perfect for night scenes like this where you want to capture both the light in the image as well as the dark.
Like I said in the previous post, looking at our past photos has not only been a fun walk down memory lane. The process has also made me realize that we have a pretty crappy camera right now, and, because of that, we don’t take nearly the amount of pictures we used to take.
On my search for a new camera recently, I came across this new type of photography called HDR photography.
HDR photography isn’t really a new form of photography; it was actually first discovered in the mid 1800s! It is new to the masses though and that’s because of the accessibility of digital cameras as well as HDR software. As these new technologies have become more and more affordable, HDR has grown in popularity.
HDR at it’s basics is simply taking several different photos (usually at least 3) of the same scene under different light exposure values and then putting them all together into one photo to increase the dynamic range (or the areas of light and dark in the picture) closer to that of how the human eye sees things.
Another great way to use HDR photography is to capture the different elements of a sunset or sunrise realistically.
In other words, by increasing the dynamic range of the photo you are making the scene in your picture look more true to the image that your eyes are seeing.
This is because a camera has a much lower dynamic range than your eyes. But, when you take these photos at different exposure rates and then put them together into one photo, it helps to increase the range of light and dark present in your picture, thereby increasing your dynamic range.
Pretty basic right…but how is it all done?
Well, before HDR software was invented, all of the processing required to put these images together was done in the dark room. But now, people can use their home computers to create these images and this has made HDR easier for more people to enjoy….which is fabulous!
So, if you like photography at all, or, if you’re someone who would take more pictures if only those pictures would come out more realistic – then you should definitely check out HDR photography!
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