View of Flathead lake from Wild Horse Island Montana
A scene I photographed last summer at Flathead lake Montana. This is the view from Wild Horse Island.
This is a good example of a scene where the dynamic range (dark to light areas) of the view was too large to be captured on the sensor.
It was either:
- Capture the sky and distant water BUT totally Underexpose the Trees in the Foreground … or
- Have some tree detail but Overexpose the Lake and sky in background
The Benefit of HDR – High Dynamic Range imaging is that you can ‘have Your Cake and Eat it’ – you can capture a wider range of light in one Image.
You do this by taking Photos of different exposure and then combining them.
In this scene I took 3 photos at f/6.3, ISO 200 using a Canon 60D and 16-35mm f/2.8L lens. The exposures were varied by using different shutter speeds (there is a good reason why you vary Shutter speed NOT Aperture – I go into that in my EasyDSLR free sample below). The photos were taken at 1/250 sec (undexposed but sky good), 1/60 sec (normal exposure – some overexposed some underexposed parts), and 1/15sec (overexposed but trees good).
Combine these with your favorite HDR software and presto – an image closer to what your mind perceives on the day.
or watch a sample from the HDR training Video (I mention the Reason you want to vary Shutter Speed NOT aperture)