High Dynamic Range photography is very new to me, and a concept I’ve been hearing a lot about over the recent years. As you may know, I shoot things occasionally, most notably when travelling. I’ve yet to really hone my photography craft though, until recently when I decided to read up on a few more advanced topics.
Consequently, I’m planning on a few entries here on Sanders Technology about HDR Photography and also IR (Infrared) Photography – once I am able to purchase some IR filters!
This weekend, I’ve been playing with some HDR software (Photomatix Pro 4.0) which allows you to knit together bracketed photos in both raw and JPEG formats. Luckily, whilst I was travelling and touring in Rome, Italy last year due to lighting conditions, I shot a lot of photos with AE (automatic exposure) bracketing so I have a good source of photos to practice with.
Having only just started to dip into the topic, I
managed to produce the following photo of Trajan’s
Marketplace using a Black and White filter.
As you can see here, the main outcome is that both
the foreground and background contracts have been
successfully melded, and – in particular – the
foreground has a lot more detail than you’d normally
expect considering the exposure at the time of
shooting the photo.
For my second attempt, I took a high colour
bracketed set of photos of the Roman Forum and used
a grunge effect to produce a HDR image which looks like a painting.
This was shot with a good amount of light, as such
the bracketing doesn’t vary as widely as in the
previous photo of Trajan’s marketplace.
There is a lot of noise, especially in the sky, however softening the image also results in losing the painting-like definition.
I’ve added a third photo, in my attempts to lighten
and soften the effect. This is a second bracketed
photo taken shortly after the one above.
Although it lacks the deeper colours, the photo comes
out more natural, if subdued slightly.
I’m also including resized copies of the source photos,
for comparison – they are linked at the bottom of this
article.
Anyhow, this is something new for me and hopefully as I learn, my results will be better! I’m sure it’ll take some time to find the optimal settings for everyday shooting. Check back soon for more on these interesting photographic techniques.
Lastly, a bonus (I’ve been messing around with non-bracketed photos) and managed to form this nice HDR of the China pavilion at the World Expo in Shanghai.
Original (Source) Bracketed Photos – Resized
