High Dynamic Range Photography

[kerosene]

That is really incredible, Ibram. I want to learn more about this technique.

[glatt]

There is an instructible on how to do HDR images with the GIMP, but I haven't had a chance to try it.

Check out the steps here.

I understand there is specialized software to make it easier.

[BigV]

Originally Posted by HungLikeJesus

Is HDR photography a function of the camera or a post processing technique?

Originally Posted by case

That is really incredible, Ibram. I want to learn more about this technique.

It is both.

Naturally, despite whatever post processing efforts are applied, the source material makes an enormous impact on the end result. Ibram chose his subjects well, photographed them well, and *then* applied this post processing technique.

So before I get to the technique, I want to say to Ibram: Wow. They're beautiful. You've done a very nice job. In the first one, the highlights in the trees almost look like noise, they're so blown out, but I like the evenness of the saturation of the greens and the blazing sun. Originally I was going to say it's my favorite, but after re-reviewing them, I like them all. Just superb. Thanks for sharing them and inspiring me.

Now for the links: one, two. Here's a brief description of the technique.

Dynamic range (DR) is a fairly generic term used in a variety of disciplines. As described above, for our purposes in photography, DR is the range of luminance values from the darkest to the brightest. The DR of the real-world scene in front of you is the range of darkest to brightest portions available to your eye, film or imaging sensor. The DR of a camera is the subset of the scene’s DR that can be captured without being clipped on the highlight end, or reduced to noise or outright blocked up on the shadow end. Conversely, the DR of a monitor is the luminance range it can display from black to white.

High dynamic range (HDR) must mean a lot of DR. But how much is “a lot?” The standard unit for measuring luminance is candelas per square meter, or cd/m2. You may have seen this unit used in monitor specifications. According to the FAQ at www.hdrsoft.com (the web site for Photomatix Pro), “the luminance of starlight is around 0.001 cd/m2, that of a sunlit scene is around 100,000 cd/m2, [… and] the luminance of the sun itself is approximately 1,000,000,000 cd/m2.”

...

Loosely speaking, then, HDR is the ability to capture and represent the full DR found in a scene with high perceptual accuracy and precision.