High Dynamic Range (HDR) is a technique that is gaining a lot of attention in the photography world these days. Some are hailing it as the greatest invention since the photo sensor, and others have dismissed as the latest fad that will be gone as quickly as it showed up.
At Macbeth Photography, we believe HDR is a very useful technique, and we’ve incorporated it into our workflow with all the other tools, like tilt-shift lenses, panoramic stitching, and Photoshop adjustments when necessary.
We use HDR any time there is a difficult lighting situation. Most often this is a wide range of light in a single scene, such as when shooting interiors with daylight coming through an open window, or when there are bright highlights and dark shadows in the same exterior scene, on a bright, sunny day.
HDR effectively widens the “dynamic range” of the camera’s sensor, by taking multiple exposures and compiling the best-exposed parts into a single image.
In this example, Wally’s was photographed about an hour after sunset, when there was little or no daylight left. The neon sign presents an interesting problem, as it is several stops brighter than the light on the face of the building. In the very underexposed photo, the neon looks just right, but the rest of the image is too dark. By the time we’ve got good light on the building, the neon is completely blown out. This is where we see the real meaning of High Dynamic Range. Finally, by using software to combine the various exposures properly, we’re able to see the image somewhat like our eyes see it, with detail in the bright neon and the deep shadows as well. (above, full size).
The final image was cropped a little tighter, and had some adjustments made in Lightroom and Photoshop, boosting contrast and punching up the detail and saturation. I’d welcome your comments on this.
Please contact us for more information on this and other techniques that help us get the very best quality images for our clients.
