Photos by Phil

High Dynamic Range (HDR) photography has come into its own as a way to bring out detail in high contrast scenes.  I use HDR photography in my landscape shots as an attempt to bring to the photo the best representation as how the scene looked while I was there.

I find high contrast scenes, such as those with bright sunlit areas with deep shadows, are the best candidates for shooting with HDR in mind.  Other types of photography suitable for HDR processing includes, Architecture, street scenes, and indoor, or outdoor, low light shooting.  A composition with moving subjects is not suitable for HDR unless you shoot in bracketed mode on your camera, and your camera is capable of shooting 3 to 5 frames per second to avoid blurring subjects.

When I go on a shoot, I keep my mind open to HDR possibilities.  The technique I prefer for separating the shots specific to an HDR image is really quite simple.  I take a photo of the scene with my finger in the frame.  I then take five bracketed exposures, each being 1 f-stop apart.  I start with a centered metered shot, then move 1 stop over, 2 stops over, then 1 stop under and 2 stops under.  After the last shot in the series I take another shot with my finger in it, signaling an end to the series.

When I shoot sunrises or sunsets I may take several series of shots due to the ever changing light.  This enables me to be able to chose from several processed HDR images for the right mix of colors and light.

Once I’ve uploaded the images to from the camera to the computer I have a couple of options for processing HDR images.  The first is Photoshop CS5.  Photoshop CS5 has a Merge to HDR function which combines a series of photos into a single HDR image.  The process is fairly simple and produces a decent image.

My favorite HDR program is Photomatix 4.0.  Version 4 is a big improvement over version 3, which I thought produced HDR images that were too overprocessed.  Version 4 includes some presets, but also allows for finetuning the image.  It produces a very smooth, color balanced image that has none of the pinkish tones found in similar programs.

Processing the image using Photomatix is pretty straight forward.  Load your series of photos and the program merges the images, giving you a preview of the final untouched image.  You have the choice of selecting a preset, or tone mapping your image using the sliders to make your adjustments.

Photomatix can create both color and black and white HDR images.  For more information go to the Photomatix webpage: http://www.hdrsoft.com/.