HDR Photography - How and Why You Should Use This Technique - High Dynamic Range Photography
/Why Shooting HDR Photography is the Best Way to Get Great Images
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A 7 photo HDR Image of the Cherry Blossom Festival, 2019
What is HDR Photography?
HDR stands for High Dynamic Range, and is used widely by most if not all photographers at some time. The term refers to obtaining the widest range of luminosity (light, shade and darkness) in an image by taking several images that contain all of the dark tones, mid-tones, and high tones available in the scene. In more simple terms you will take one or more underexposed photo, one or more correctly exposed photo, and one or more overexposed photo. These images are then merged in Lightroom (or other software) to create the final “HDR” image.
This photographic technique should in no way be confused with the “HDR” images that most of us are used to seeing on Facebook and Instagram. These images are simply over-processed using software algorithms to create a very dramatic effect.
The “HDR” image below shows how a regular image is processed with a “filter” to create a dramatic effect. Although widely considered to be HDR, this does not meet my definition of HDR photography.
This is a single image with minor edits in Lightroom
The image was given an “HDR” “filter” to make it look more dramatic.
These images can be very visually interesting, beautiful and dramatic. I see these images in more of an artistic view as apposed to actual HDR photography.
How HDR Photography is Done
There are many ways to shoot HDR images with a camera. Some photographers prefer to shoot each image in full manual mode, some shoot in full automatic mode, and some (like me) shoot in aperture priority mode with automatic exposure (AE) bracketing.
All DLSR and DSLM (mirrorless) cameras have a some sort of a bracketing mode built in to the cameras, and some higher end compacts have this function as well. In fact, my Panasonic Lumix LX10 compact had the bracketing function even before my Fujifilm X-T2 did.
Auto Exposure Bracketing Explained
Because my main shooter is the Fujifilm X-T2, I will refer to its function throughout this explanation. However, each other camera functions will be very similar.
The Fujifilm X-T2 bracketing is in the camera’s settings under “Drive Settings,” and then under BKT Settings. From here you can choose AE (auto Exposure) bracketing, ISO BKT, White Balance BKT, Dynamic Range BKT, as well as Focus and film bracketing. I almost exclusively use the AE BKT as this makes the most sense for my style of photography.
When you choose the bracketing in your camera, you will also need to choose then number of images for the camera to take, the number of F-stops to move between each photo, as well as the increments of each F-stop movement (e.g. 1/3 stop between each image, 1, 2, or 3 stops between images. The amount you choose is entirely a personal choice, so test this function out and determine what works best for you.
For me, I choose to take seven images total with 1 stop between each image. This provides a great flexibility of having one correctly exposed image, with one image 3 stops underexposed, one 2 stops underexposed, and one 1 stop underexposed. The camera also takes 3 images overexposed in the same increments. I find this provides me with enough flexibility to cover the entire range of any scene’s luminous range.
Merging the Bracketed Images in Lightroom
The process of merging bracketed images into a HDR image could not be made more simple by using Lightroom. Follow these steps and you cannot go wrong:
Import your images into Lightroom, then go to the “Develop” module;
Highlight all of the bracketed images for the photo you want to merge, right click on the group, go to “Photo Merge,” and select HDR.
Select “Auto Align” to ensure the best alignment of the images, and click Merge
Once the images have merged, simply color correct and make edits as you would any single image.
Export your image and go out and shoot more!
The images below show the progression of the bracketed images before and after merging.
This is the 1st correctly exposed image in a series of seven
1st Underexposed image that saves all of the highlights
Second Underexposed Image
3rd Underexposed Image
1st Overexposed Image
2nd Overexposed Image
3rd overexposed Image that saves all of the shadows
Final Blended Image with Minor Color Edits
Why Not Use a Single Correctly Exposed Image?
There are several reasons to merge bracketed images instead of using a single image that has been “correctly” exposed. When bracketed images are merged in Lightroom, any noise from shadows and darkened areas are virtually eliminated. The process of merging combines the “best” parts of each image, and creates a higher pixel dense image. Could you use a single image with decent results? Absolutely! However, the amount of editing power when processing multiple images simply can’t be beat.
HDR is Not a Dirty Word - My Conclusion
After seeing article after article and opinion after opinion on how HDR photography deserves to die over the years, my conclusions is far different. I see a huge misconception in the Instagram world that heavily “filtered” images are real HDR images. The truth is closer to the images I’ve shown, which show realistic images that happen to have saved the darkest of the shadows, the brightest of the whites, and have saved them and merged them into a beautiful image.
Go out, bracket those photos, and create amazing images!
Please share and leave comments!
Matthew Reed, Editor, GenXploreMore
