On a rainy day, the photographer will play (inside of course)

So what is a photographer to do on a rainy day in May? Stay inside of course, and play in his lightroom. And that’s exactly what I did today. After reading after HDR, or high dynamic range imaging, I figured I’d give it a shot. I figured there is nothing to lose, other than my sense of white balance.

This first image was taken in Bluefield, Virginia on May 4 2008. I was taking pictures of some of my friends cars atop an old parking garage around 7pm and the lighting was great. I happened upon this scene of an M3

Nothing too amazing here, just a ground level shot with a slightly wide angle and a great capture of the sky and rustic building in the background for contrast. However, the car is underexposed while the sky and building are slightly overexposed. I really just wanted the image to pop, without looking ridiculous or overworked. Luckily I took the photo in RAW so after firing up Photomatix my first go at compiling an HDR image is below.

I was surprised by the power of this software. After a few minutes of finagling with the controls in tonemapping, I had the image just the way I wanted it. Much more zing and saturation in the sky and building, all the while the primary subject of the image, the car, has maintained clarity and definition. Overall it is a much more balanced photograph and has gone from a bland, mundane image, to a photograph full of life and potential. Much more fitting to the Mpower that is hiding under that hood.

No way I could stop there. I looked through some of the other RAW files I had taken on the top of this garage. I cam across this one, my friends Porsche from above.

Again, another plain jane image, just a unique angle. Anyone who has ever delved into HDR imaging knows that reds can be a very difficult color to deal with. When 3 or more images are combined the reds often tend to become grainy and supersaturated. I had this issue here, however after adjusting the highlight saturation levels I was able to reduce the grain to an acceptable level and below is the result.

A little mild in comparison to the first, but nonetheless an excellent final product, with which I was pleased. There is much more exaggeration of the imperfections of the parking garage and abandoned building, which are a hard cut from the gloss of the paint on the car and the lush greens to either side.

One more, this time the sky, clouds and sun are the subjects. As part of my shoot the sunset every night project, I captured this picture of a very dynamic sky.

Obviously there is much potential here, from the rays peeking out behind the cloud, to the range of color from top to bottom. I played with this one for a great while before coming to a satisfactory result. The blues are bluer and the oranges are deeper, but not in a saturation sense. Also the rays have maintained much of their original impact, but don't dominate the scene. They blend well with the stronger coloration and the result is a shot that looks more composed and thought out.
I hope this post may have piqued your interest in HDR photography. Even if you aren't interested in making absolutely surreal landscapes or over processed images that don't look authentic, hopefully you can still see the benefits of balancing the highlights and shadows of the final image through the combination of several exposures of varying levels. Below are a few links to how-tos on HDR photography and a link to a demo version of Photomatix which allows you to combine images of different exposure levels. these should tell you everything you need to know and give you the tools you need, other than a camera of course :)

http://backingwinds.blogspot.com/2006/10/how-to-create-professional-hdr-images.html

http://www.luminous-landscape.com/tutorials/hdr.shtml

http://www.hdrsoft.com/