My newest obsession has become HDR photography. Over the past few weeks I’ve read up on it and while there are plenty of technical articles about it on the web, there aren’t too many written in straightforward easy-to-understand language. I thought I’d give a brief overview of what HDR is all about and follow it up with a post on how to actually take your very first HDR photo.

What is HDR photography?

HDR stands for High Dynamic Range. It is a type of photography that allows you to capture a much greater range of light and detail in a single photo. An HDR photo usually contains a blending of light areas and dark areas that are much closer in appearance to what your normal eyes would see than with a traditional photograph.

HDR photos are created by combining 3 or more photos taken at different exposures. After the 3 photos are merged into a single HDR file, a feature called “tone mapping” allows you to combine the light and dark details in a single photo to produce an (often exaggerated) photo with a high range of detail and color. You usually need a tripod because each photo needs to be taken from the same perspective and angle.

Let’s look at an example of my very first HDR photo (taken last night). Here are the 3 source images:

and the resulting processed (tone-mapped and cropped) HDR:

If you look at the cars on the right hand side, you will see that their detail and exposure is preserved along with the color and detail you see on the wall to the left. So the result is a composite that’s much closer to what you would see with your own eyes because more of the “range” is seen in the photograph.

Check out HDR Soft if you want to see even better examples of what HDR photos enable you to do. If you want to learn more about HDR photography or get more into the technical details, check out Memoirs On A Rainy Day - it’s one of the best articles I’ve found on the topic. There’s also an HDR photo group on Flickr with even more examples.

Next up… How to take your very first HDR photo.