HDR or High Dynamic Range Photography is taking several photos of the same scene but using different shutter settings and combining them to make one photo.
You might take anywhere from 3 to 5 photos either using bracketing or just setting your shutter speed to different settings to get various exposures.
An example would be if you took a picture of say a cathedral. With the low light of the cathedral, you may be exposing for the highlights. If you do that, you get proper exposure for that part, but the shadows will be very dark to the point that it may be black. If you expose for the shadows, you get details of the shadows, but you blow out the highlights where it will look white.
By doing HDR, you take several photos with different shutter speeds. By doing so, you will get some photos with the proper exposures, some with blown highlights and some with very dark shadows.
Then you combine the photos, elimiate the blown highlights and remove the dark shadows. You then end up with a photo that has vibrant colors and balanced exposures throughout.
You don't need a special camera to do HDR photography. Any camera where you can control the exposure or shutter setting will work. You will also need a tripod or someplace to hold your camera steady so you can make sure you're taking a photo of the same scene. You then need some software to combine them and fix the photos.
To do HDR Photography, you need the following:
You might take anywhere from 3 to 5 photos either using bracketing or just setting your shutter speed to different settings to get various exposures.
An example would be if you took a picture of say a cathedral. With the low light of the cathedral, you may be exposing for the highlights. If you do that, you get proper exposure for that part, but the shadows will be very dark to the point that it may be black. If you expose for the shadows, you get details of the shadows, but you blow out the highlights where it will look white.
By doing HDR, you take several photos with different shutter speeds. By doing so, you will get some photos with the proper exposures, some with blown highlights and some with very dark shadows.
Then you combine the photos, elimiate the blown highlights and remove the dark shadows. You then end up with a photo that has vibrant colors and balanced exposures throughout.
You don't need a special camera to do HDR photography. Any camera where you can control the exposure or shutter setting will work. You will also need a tripod or someplace to hold your camera steady so you can make sure you're taking a photo of the same scene. You then need some software to combine them and fix the photos.
To do HDR Photography, you need the following:
- A camera (obviously) - Canon, Nikon, Olympus, Leica, Lumix, Kodak, any China made camera. It doesn't matter.
- A computer (of course) - It doesn't matte if it's a Mac or a PC.
- Photoshop - if you are really serious about photography, you definitely need Photoshop. For you Linux fans out there, GIMP will work as well.
- HDR Software such as Photomatix or EasyHDR.
- Learn to use the softwares
I found a tutorial online that has more details on how to do HDR Photography. The tutorial was created by Trey Ratcliff who runs the No. 1 travel photography blog on the Internet with over 350,000 visits per month.
Check out his HDR photos at http://www.stuckincustoms.com/
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