HDR Test #2

Yesterday, I mentioned my growing interest in HDR (High Dynamic Range) photography. Today, we got a break in the rain, providing the perfect opportunity to put HDR to the test in a sunny environment.

Best attempt--single exposure

14 images combined using Picturenaut

Wow. The shot on the right would be totally impossible to get in one photo. The sky is totally blown out--i.e., there is no detail there what-so-ever. If I expose for the sky, then the foreground goes almost completely black. As you can see, the HDR approach works wonders! There is a catch though. 14 exposures took about 1-2 minutes to get since I had to change the exposure with each one. As a result, the wind in the sky moved the clouds quite a bit. Here's what I mean:

Original HDR image

After some time in Photoshop

I don't really care for the blurry, wispy, moving clouds, so I took one of the original exposures, added a mask and put the stationary clouds back into the merged HDR image. Neat huh!? It can't be right to have this much fun with such geeky stuff. LOL.