Having fun with HDR...(High dynamic range)

Theres's so many exposure values for each image captured either in film or digitally and is impossible to get it all on film or digital capture. There's a tutorial on http://www.luminous-landscape.com/tutorials/zone_system.shtml that talks and explains about this. Most non professional folks that don't know anything about taking pictures will not understand this. Most humans think that a photographer has an easy job and that it is not hard taking a picture, all they have to do is press a "button". It's little more complicated than this. Let me explain it this way. Anyone can pull a trigger of a gun, but, it will definetly take talent and practice hitting a target. Us photographerz.....take time, patience, preparation to get that "target". If regular folks would be able to do this ....then why hire a pro.... The camera does NOT capture the image the same way your EYE sees it. You capture it either on film or digital....then you try to get the image to look the way your eyes saw it. Ansel Adams did this all the time. That's why his prints look great. Don't misunderstand me. I am not talking about manipulating the image..what I am talking about is getting the right exposures......shadows, highlights, midtones, etc..

You want your shadows to look like shadows, not black....., your highlights not blown (this means a patch of white light)..., your midtones perfectly exposed.....The following pictures will demonstrate a little about that. I've used Photomatix Software to get all the right exposures correctly.. Background, Forground, details.....etc.

enjoy.

The great thing about photomatix is that it gives you the tools to be able to provide the right output in finalizing the correct image with good exposure values. This shot here of my son, was taken with a very light flash on my left. But, you could see the background is perfect with the foreground. I did notice though his shirt was "burnt" a bit.




This is actually one raw image, processed in three different exposures to get this final image. Is it work? Yes it is. To get this image, I would have fired a flash to my right with a diffuser and measured the background.....




For this image, I really wanted to test Photomatix limits. It's one raw file, and once again, processed in three different exposures. The shadows look good, the sky is blue. But, I notice that "burnt" look at the sky once more. I have to figure out why that happens.




This is actually a photograph without flash at all. To the left is "burnt" a little bit. But, that just means is has to be a closer crop.