HDR Provides Sky-High Drama

You have built-in resources for taking photographs. Pay attention to your mind when it arranges a composition. Your eyes think, don’t they?

As Yogi Berra said, “You can see a lot just by observing.”

In high dynamic range imaging (HDR for short), the magnetic force of the sky will pull you towards it with your eyes and then your camera. Three more exposures later you have remarkable clouds.

As you begin your HDR education, it’s inevitable you’ll soon look up before you look out. What kind of sky do we have today? Check out the tonality overhead. Wow. But remember to look for tones and textures on the ground as well.

See the trees and their leaves? HDR will bring out the color variations and at the same time maintain the elements in the highlights and shadows.

Regardless of placing your camera on a tripod or holding it freely in your hands, you have movement with leaves most of the time, which means your HDR software might encounter artifacts (ghostly outlines). It simply cannot line up every leaf so it makes compromises. Some HDR programs perform this action better than others. Photomatix is really good at it.

While you look up at the sky, observe the sun’s location. If you thought the colors were brought out with the sun shining ‘on’ the subject, try it with the sun shining ‘through’ the subject. Backlighting presents a neat outcome with leaves and makes the colors come to life.

Pay notice to your aperture also. A high number equals plenty in focus; next to and far from. A small number is good for isolating your subject matter.

A well-liked approach for showing off the value of HDR is “inside-looking-out” or “outside-looking-in.”

How many instances have you been within a building and desired to depict the subject matter indoors and also expose what the external surroundings look like? Just pose that question to someone who sells houses for a living.

One image, more often than not, turns into a properly-exposed interior, but the trees, grass and sky are wiped out. If you expose for the ground, the sky and all of that, it becomes absolutely dark in the house. So much for boasting a photograph that advertises the dwelling on its vista.

It’s an equal dilemma for “outside-looking-in.” As a rule, when you are taking a nighttime picture, let’s say, of the city center, you have metered appropriately for the vehicles, pedestrians and storefronts, but the stores are all white (over lit, is seems) inside.

Try taking your shots around twilight, before the night reaches its full darkness. You’ll be better able to capture the features of the lights and darks before noise becomes an issue. The sky will translate into a rich, navy blue and not a dense black.

While in the fading light phase, tinker with your white balance settings. On some occasions, you can get away with Auto. If that doesn’t give you a suitable feel, try Tungsten or Fluorescent. The challenge is balancing the indoor lights and the street lights.

Jamie Roach is a professional photographer and graphic designer in Sussex, New Brunswick, Canada, with more than 20 years experience in the business. He is the author of http://www.hdr-photo.org — a Website born out of his passion. It gives you an inside look at High Dynamic Range imaging with valuable tips and tutorials.

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