2 stops underexposed

High Dynamic Range (HDR) is a technique that is gaining a lot of attention in the photography world these days.  Some are hailing it as the greatest invention since the photo sensor, and others have dismissed as the latest fad that will be gone as quickly as it showed up.

At Macbeth Photography, we believe HDR is a very useful technique, and we’ve incorporated it into our workflow with all the other tools, like tilt-shift lenses, panoramic stitching, and Photoshop adjustments when necessary.

"correctly" exposed

We use HDR any time there is a difficult lighting situation.  Most often this is a wide range of light in a single scene, such as when shooting interiors with daylight coming through an open window, or when there are bright highlights and dark shadows in the same exterior scene, on a bright, sunny day.

HDR effectively widens the “dynamic range” of the camera’s sensor, by taking multiple exposures and compiling the best-exposed parts into a single image.

2 stops overexposed

In this example, the building was photographed late in the day, and one side of the building was in direct sunlight, while the other face was heavily shadowed.  By exposing the same photo 5 different times, we were able to expose properly for each part of the building at least once.  The software we use then compiles the different exposures together to form the final image (above, full size).

We look forward to providing you with our best work, including HDR, if and when it’s appropriate.

Here are some more images that use HDR to bring out the best detail in the highlights and the shadows.

Please contact us for more information on this and other techniques that help us get the very best quality images for our clients.