Photography Class - HDR Photography (High Dynamic Range)

Standard Image

HDR Image

(7 images combined)

Today, while teaching photography, we studied HDR Photography. HDR stands for "High Dynamic Range." Basically, HDR combines several images together to create a single image that can show very bright areas of a photo along with very dark shadow areas of a photo... all in one image.

As you can see, a standard photograph taken normally and based on the reading of the built-in meter of the camera shows the atrium in my office building with all the windows all "blown out" with the sunlight. But the plants look fine. However, even within the plants, the shadow areas are not bright enough to show details.

Now look at the HDR photo. The windows no longer look over-exposed (you can see outside!) and also the plants have enough light that you can see the details inside the formerly shadowed area. Essentially, the range of dark to bright areas are now rendered such that you can see more details in both very bright areas and very dark areas. No additional lighting was used to create this image... what you see is lighting provided by the sunlight outside and any additional lighting is from the flood lights above. Essentially, the same lighting that was used to create the first image above.

So how can the HDR image show so much more detail? Well, this particular HDR image combined 7 different exposures to make the one. However, you can make HDR images with as little as 3 images combined. While a tripod is often helpful to align all the images, I simply handheld the camera for this exercise. Sitll, the image looks pretty good, don't you think? Be sure to click on each image to take a closer look.

How do you make these incredible HDR images? Well, first you sign up for a class with me... and then we learn about...

You get the idea.