My first attempt at HDR photography

This week I’ve been working on some new skills and improving old ones.  I’ve been going through many of the great tutorials on www.Lynda.com I have been fascinated by HDR (High Dynamic Range) photography and wanted to give it a go.  Here are the pictures I took today and processed with HDR Expose 2.

It was important that I get a subtle HDR look.  Do a google search for HDR and you’ll see a lot of pictures that look sort of like animated CGI.  I wanted mine to look natural.  So I went to a living history farm behind my house to try.  It was amazing to see the difference!  The process is essentially taking the same image 3 times; one normal exposure, one 2 stops under, one- two stops over exposed.  Using software to combine the three images you get an image that allows you to see the shadows and highlights and a lot of texture.  I think I’m hooked!  For example if you look at my link above of the pics I took today, you’ll see that in one of the shots you can see out the window.   Normally a photographer has to choose between exposing for the room and blowing out the highlights of the window, thus not seeing out the window.  Or exposing for the window and not being able to see the room inside because it is underexposed.  HDR allows both!  My next goal is HDR time lapsing!