Hi Mark, thats interesting, didn't know iPhone had that kind of thing – what app did you use? I've just won (yes I know) an iPad 2 and so I'd be interested.

HDR depends on the scene, and the range of colours but it can really show some interesting results. Let us know if you have any other interesting results.

PS. Well done on getting photos into your post!!

A little night HDR yesterday (subtle HDR this time):

http://chrislovephotography.er…..ottingham/

Post edited 10:47 pm – December 22, 2010 by ChrisLuv

Please forgive the post below – I've known about this for less than a day….

The basic principle is that normal photographs don't do justice to the scene, i.e. the human eye does much better than a computer or film at perceiving the complex exposures at any given time in any given scene. HDR (High Dynamic Range Imaging) attempts to solve that, see the Wikipedia definition:

In image processing, computer graphics, and photography, high dynamic range imaging (HDRIor just HDR) is a set of techniques that allow a greater dynamic range of luminance between the lightest and darkest areas of an image than current standard digital imaging techniques or photographic methods. This wide dynamic range allows HDR images to more accurately represent the range of intensity levels found in real scenes, ranging from direct sunlight to faint starlight

 

Its better for landscapes, I believe, especially ones with high contrast, but I thought I'd give it a try.

In simple terms you start by taking three images, bracketed by -2 EV, 0 EV and + 2 EV (using auto bracketing on your camera). Then you use an application to merge these into a single image. There's a several good tutorials online.

Here's my initial scene, a rather chaotic but uninspiring scene from my living room:

I've taken this shot three times, the one above plus one under exposed by two stops and one over exposed by two stops. There's also a commercial program (Photomatix) which I then used to produce the HDR image, theres lots of setting but here's the best I got:

The watermark is because I'm using the trail version.

I then used Luminance HDR http://qtpfsgui.sourceforge.net/  (free software) to produce another HDR image to see if it was better. There are lots of settings again, and less documentation, and I couldn't play around for long, but I kinda like the look of this (though the lights above the tv seem to have some abberation on them):

I prefer the photomatix one

The effects you can get using this effect, once experienced, blow my mind. see some examples below:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/3…..382751479/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/f…..382751479/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/w…..479/page2/