HappyPappy Blog

I recently attended a photography workshop by Darwin Wiggett and although I’ve been shooting pictures for a while it still turns out that I knew nothing (now I only know next to nothing) about photography.

If you want to gain an insight into how to take better pictures I highly recommend Darwins seminars, check out his web site for seminar dates.

One of the things I learned about however was High Dynamic Range (HDR) photography. In simple terms, have you ever tried taking a picture of a landscape or object and although your main subject was perfectly exposed either the sky or the background was too dark or too light (washed out)?

The primary reason is that the contrast between your main subject and the background or sky is too high and the camera or film simply cannot adjust both extremes to be properly exposed into your picture. There are a few solutions to resolve this problem; Darwin is a god of using filters to properly expose his pictures to create stunning images where all elements are properly exposed.

Myself not only do I not have the patience to dicker with filters but I also don’t have the skill or a camera that accepts filters easily.

The alternative is HDR photography where in essence one takes multiple pictures of a scene at various levels of exposure (usually one picture under exposed, one where the main subject is correctly exposed, and one over exposed) and then using software to combine these into one correctly exposed picture.

This technique requires a rock steady hand or tripod or monopod, a relatively quick shutter speed, and a slow moving or non moving subject.

Darwin had discussed Photomatics by HDRsoft and I thought I’d give it a try, the results are below.

I took a picture of a wharf in Horseshoe Bay Vancouver using a picnic table in lieu of a tripod and the Auto Exposure Bracketing (AEB) feature on my Cannon G9:

Good exposure on main subject (wharf), sky washed out (over exposed)

Better sky, but wharf and grass too dark (under exposed)

Most of the picture over exposed except for the grass

I then dragged these pictures into Photomatix and clicked the process button to produce the picture below:

About five minutes of diddling with the settings, not bad (pretty darned good I’d say).

I believe there are also HDR features (or methods) in Photoshop CS2 and Photomatix also has a plugin for Photoshop, but using Photomatix was quick and painless. Sign me up!!!