Experimenting with HDR
The first time I saw HDR photographs I was blown away. Little did I imagine then that my little Nikon D40 and some open source software could produce some amazing HDR results.
I did, though, discover that the D40 was inexplicably produced without automatic exposure bracketing, meaning I had to do this all manually. Now that I’ve fiddled with it a bit I’d love to have AEB to cut down on ghosting and open up the possibilities for better HDR, but I’m making progress.
So here’s what I did. My original shot (sorry that it’s no great photo; I’m experimenting with what I have access to today):
As you can see, it’s a typical digital picture in a number of ways - the brightness of the exposure causes some of the darker elements to lose their detail. (By the way, you can click on any picture in this post for a fullsize version.)
But by melding a few different exposures into one, you get HDR. Here’s what I ended up with on my first attempts:
[If you want to see more, and better, HDR, check out the article that first blew me away at Smashing Magazine.]