I’m still fairly new to HDR, but the more I work with it, the more I like it. HDR has opened a whole new door for digital photography to capture a scene as the eye sees it. It’s possible to push the limits of what looks realistic, but my preference is to keep a more natural look. The photo of the San Francisco skyline taken in Legoland, CA is a bit more surrealistic than I typically care for, but I still like the results. As a general guideline, for client work, I use HDR as a way to capture details in a wider dynamic range than would be achievable in a single photo.
This photo was made using 7 individual exposures. The main index image was metered about halfway between the bright sky and the darker tones of the building models. I have dedicated one of my cameras to making HDR images. I changed several of the settings on my camera to accommodate HDR imaging. Digital Photo Pro has several settings for the camera that lend themselves very well to making HDR photos. For example, expanding auto exposure bracketing to 7 images instead of the default 3. Also, limiting high speed bursts to 7 exposures helps ensure a hand held camera has very little movement between exposures, which limits ghosting.
Camera: Canon 1D Mark II
Lens: 24-70 f2.8 L
Base Exposure: 1/500 f/8
7 exposures set at 2/3 stop increments
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by William Foster
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