The Value of HDR Photography

I've never really dabbled much with High Dynamic Range (HDR) imagery--that is, taking multiple pictures at different settings (exposures) and then merging the images together. Traditional HDR images, found all over the web, have always seemed overdone to me. Still, I wanted to take a closer look when I found some photographers using HDR techniques resulting in images that, unless you were a photographer, could not be recognize as being an HDR image. I found a program that seems to help do just that; Picturenaut.

Best attempt--single exposure

5 images combined using Picturenaut

Impressive if you ask me. Our eyes have a much greater dynamic range than our cameras--that is, the eye can see a much greater spread between light and dark than a camera. The left image is what the camera sees. The right, is a fair representation of what my eye sees, but it took 5 different images at varying exposures to get it! Wow. I can't wait to play with this some more.