Beginning Guide to HDR with Seven Primary Examples
High Dynamic Range photography is an artistic technique that was developed in the 1930’s by Charles Wyckoff. His unfortunate last name wrecked havoc throughout high school and caused an otherwise healthy young Charles to grow into a very agitated adult, with a very different view of the world. The work he produced in later years was lead by the desire to photograph his surroundings with the intensity and shadowy range of colors that his overactive brain created to suppress the feelings he had for his mother and odd telemarketers
Fast forward seventy years, and almost every camera has some sort of built-in HDR capability, that when mixed with PhotoShop, can create some wickedly cool images much like you see below.
Saint Isaac’s Cathedral
Credit to isik5
Saint Isaac’s Cathedral is largest cathedral in Saint Petersburg, and at one time was the largest church in all of Russia. It was dedicated to Saint Isaac of Dalmatia, a patron saint of Peter the Great who had been born on the feast day of that saint. No pun intended, but this high-resolution HDR image of the cathedral door might give you a better ‘picture’ of just how large this building really is.
Elephant Hall
Credit to zuiun
Founded in 1871, the University of Nebraska State Museum, or ‘Elephant Hall’ houses much more than this grab-ass playing stuffed Elephant. Focus, however, on the above composite image that was developed using four exposures and limited compression.
Vanha Kirkko, Helsinki
Credit to Mark Charter
The organ in this Finnish church, located in Vanha Kirkko, Helsinki is the focal point of this image, and while we’ve never visited the church ourselves, we’re sure it sounds just as good as it looks. It was created by Stockholm resident Per Larsson Åkerman in the late 1800’s. The translated version of his Swedish WikiPedia page informs us that he completed his orgelbyggare before starting work on the incredible organ you see in the above HDR photo.
It’s a long way to the bottom.
Credit to zuiun
No, this vertigo-inducing image isn’t the latest screenshot from vaporware Duke Nukem Forever – it’s actually a parking garage located in Lincoln, Nebraska. It’s purely artistic composite uses at least four different exposures from different perspectives, which gives the illusion that you’re looking down the staircase while peering out the window, which curves below you.
SCA Event
Credit to zuiun
From the same photographer as the above staircase image, we see two anachronists fighting it out in a world where getting to the closest StarBucks involves a horse ride across a deadly battle scene. Notice the detail in the golden and purple-ish suits, and the carefully placed sword behind the first guy’s back.
Curt’s Truck
Credit to zuiun
What do you get when you mix a lazy photographer’s over-saturation and blurred imagery with Bob Ross’ happy accidents? Lomography! Originally we thought ‘lomo’ referred to the physical height of your camera whilst snapping, however WikiPedia faithfully acknowledges that it’s a proprietary method of capturing photographs based on over-saturation and blurred imagery. With that aside, we like this shot.
HayMarket Train
I think I can, I think I can.. I think I can write this description without fearing death by getting run over by the creepiest train on Earth. This multi-exposure train scene takes place southern Nebraska, and relies on the photographers keen skills rather than excessive filtering in PhotoShop™®©™™™.
And so we tip our hats to the above photographers, and kick off our new semi monthly series on HDR photography; how it applies to design and how to pull it off correctly. Subscribe to our mailing list to receive each full post in your inbox right after we post it.
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2 Responses to “Beginning Guide to HDR with Seven Primary Examples”
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I am the photographer for many of the shots you’ve posted here on the blog.
First of all, I do really appreciate the fact that you returned a link to the source. Many people don’t, which is extremely irritating. However, there are a few misrepresentations that I would like to clear up:
First of all, a couple of my images are displaying heavily distorted (as though the display dimensions are off). Namely, the Elephant Hall image and the Curt’s Truck image.
Second, your information about taking images for HDR processing is a bit inaccurate. Currently, there are no readily available commercial cameras that have “built-in” HDR capability. True HDR, by the current standard, is a process of combining multiple exposures of the same scene. None of the HDR processing actually happens in-camera. Some cameras have a feature called “Auto Exposure Bracketing” that makes it easier to capture multiple exposures, but regardless of what camera is used, the HDR image is created by taking those multiple exposures and processing them in software.
Next, it’s worth pointing out that the SCA event photo is not really an HDR image. No multiple exposures were used on that shot. Instead, a single image was run through a process of tone mapping (which is what is also used to process a multiple exposure HDR file).
If you would like to use any more of my images for future articles, and would like some insight about how they were created, please don’t hesitate to ask.
Thanks and regards!
– Robert
Hi Rob,
Thanks for the extra information, and for clearing things up with such good nature.