We welcomed back Roger Crocombe ARPS to give us another of his talks, this time on HDR (his notes for this topic will be available on our website for those who missed tonight).
Modern Digital cameras do not capture as much Dynamic range as Film did and so if you are photographing a scene where there are extremes of light and shade, you will only get detail in either the light areas or the dark areas, but not in both. This is where HDR will sort out this problem.
There are several ways of achieving this. On some modern SLR cameras you can set the camera to HDR and it will take three images and combine them to give a picture which may be acceptable. However, another way is to set the camera yourself to take three consecutive images with three different exposures using the rapid drive mode so that if something (for instance people) are moving in the picture, they do not move too far! You may then download these images in Photoshop CC, LightroomCC and Elements 11 where there are a programmes that combine the three images into one.
Another way is to purchase one of several programmes that also do this job of combining the three images. The cheapest is ‘easy HDR’ which does not do a bad job, but for better results, in Rogers experience (and he has researched this subject extensively), Photomatix is the best programme and is the one Roger uses. He stressed that you should try and visualise the end result that you seek.
All these techniques only work in certain conditions mainly in landscape photography. I take wildlife pictures mainly and getting one exposure of a bird is hard enough let alone three!!
At break time we were able to see many wonderful prints of landscapes that Roger has taken using HDR and they were spectacular.
After the break, Roger showed us how the different programmes worked, using sets of three images, and how the end results differed. He also showed us some of the different controls that are available to use in each of them.
Rogers final image of the evening was of the driving gear of a steam locomotive taken in the York Railway Museum. This again was amazing with unbelievable detail in the metalwork.
Thank you Roger for another very interesting and informative talk which we all enjoyed, and we look forward to your next visit.