Take Amazing Photographs Using HDR Photography

Most people like to bring a camera on vacation so they can capture the amazing trip for later enjoyment with friends and family back at home. However, have you ever found yourself looking at the photos at home getting ready to upload them to you favorite photo sharing site and thought “Man, these pictures don’t look anything like what I saw on vacation!”  Yeah, it’s happened to all of us. Why is that?

The human eye can see nearly 24 stops of dynamic range of light and contrast.  What does that mean for photography?  The problem comes in when a camera (either digital or film) can only capture about 10 to 12 stops of dynamic range.  That’s why those clouds in your favorite picture look flat and boring and just don’t look like what you remembered.

Enter HDR Photography.  HDR is the process of taking multiple pictures with a camera at different exposure levels and then combining them back into one picture with the full level of dynamic tonal range.  Huh????   Ok, it’s not as difficult as it sounds.  Let’s take a look at the process.

How-To Take Amazing Photographs using HDR Photography

Note: These steps are for a digital single-lens reflex camera (DSLR), but some point-and-shoot cameras also have manual modes.  My personal favorites are the Canon G11 and the Lumix DMC-LX3.

The Basic Steps:

1. Find something and take a picture. Your choice.
2. Set ISO to your lowest setting. Something like 100 or 200.
3. Set dial mode to Aperture Priority (AV.) This setting will keep the aperture the same and change the shutter time to get difference exposures.
4. Set your camera to AEB (Auto Exposure Bracketing.) This setting will set the camera to take three or more pictures in sequence with different exposure values.
5. If your camera does three bracketed shots, set them to be +/- 2 stops either way. If your camera can do five bracketed shots, set each shot to be +/- 1 stop apart.
6. Use a tripod! Each exposure needs to be exactly the same to blend without added blur. You can do it without a tripod, but make sure to brace yourself against a solid object to prevent movement. Image stabilization (IS) also helps.
7. Use a cable release. These are cheap and worth every penny as they keep any movement away from your camera. Even a simple shutter release button press can add some shake.
8. Take the picture.
9. Open the images in a program such as Photomatix and blend them together. Photomatix (my favorite) is a rather easy program to use and has a handy tutorial on how to use it here:  http://www.hdrsoft.com/resources/tutorial_basic/index.html
10. Amaze your friends with your photographs.

Of course, you can do more than this, but those are the necessary steps in the HDR process.  Each person will come out with different results for their photographs.  That’s the great thing about creativity. These are your pictures to interpret however you want.

Do you have a favorite photo editing tool or a photography tip?  Would love to hear from you in the comments!

About the Author:
Although the usual hangout for sharing his photography is www.brickmonkey.com, you will also find brickmonkey as an occasional groovyContributor here @ groovyPost.com for photography tips and tricks.