Pushing the Dynamic Range Envelope

I have been experimenting with a pretty cool technique of late, to extend the dynamic range of my camera. I have been dong HDR composites of Architecture with a tripod mounted camera for some time, to combat the often excessive DR needed to avoid burning out windows, and getting detail out of the shadows.

But what about hand held HDR composites? I do not usually take a tripod out with me when I go out for a walk in the mountains. I used Capture One, to make these composites. The HDR does a pretty good job of matching the 3 frame composites. You need to bee pretty careful in keeping the camera pointing in the same place. I usually use the 10 sec timer in my Z7, to automatically trigger the three frame sequence one after the other.

First shot is an architectural subject that was in deep shadow on a sunny day. I managed to get detail in the sky and did not have to do a lot off on the sunlit mountains.

The finished HDR picture

Made up of:

This was a backlit landscape shot, with very bright clouds.

Made up of

Handling scenes with a dynamic range larger than the camera can handle is fairly straight forward and the technique has been around for a long time.

In general, take shots using the maximum exposure* within blur and dof requirements without clipping important highlights for each important element in the scene and then blend them in post.

This technique can range from quick and simple to tedious depending on the number and types of shots taken to combine.

For deep shadow elements you can use ETTR to maximise the SNR and so minimise visible noise in that element before blending it into the final image.

*exposure - amount of light striking the sensor per unit area during a shutter actuation.

I agree that in camera hand held HDR with multiple exposure is effective and easy to do. Good image stabilization in the camera helps as does giving a slight delay to the initial shutter release. This depends on how steady your hands are. Many photographers tend to have a little more hand movement on shot 1 when they do the first press. I prefer to assemble the images in PP rather than have it done by the camera. I think it was Sony, way back on their original Nex APS-C mirrorless cameras who first began taking multiple exposures and then assembling them into a single image. They were looking to reduce noise and give some freedom from tripods. I thought it was odd at the time that they never really promoted these features. They used much the same in camera tech to do what I think were the first panoramas done in camera by stitching edges together.