What is HDR Photography? High-Dynamic-Range Imaging

Photographers toss around the HDR abbreviation, but exactly what is HDR photography?

HDR Photography Definition

HDR photography (high-dynamic-range imaging or HDRI) is the process of recovering shadows and highlights in a dynamic scene. The workflow consists of photographing and merging 3 or more poor-light images of the same scene at different exposures. The resulting photo avoids blown out highlights and shadows.

For example, a mountain with the sun in the background would have a high-dynamic range. The mountain will cause a shadow making certain parts of the scene dark and the sun will make the other parts bright. This scene will have very bright and dark areas; hence, the high-dynamic range.

Human eyes are more advanced at seeing the dynamic range of a scene and its details compared to a camera. Cameras are not able to expose correctly for bright and dark parts of scene in one photograph; HDR (imaging or HDRI) photography assists with this problem.

HDR photography is a technique to capture the dynamic range of a scene. Generally, three photos are photographed using the camera’s AEB (automatic exposure bracketing) function: normal exposure, under exposure, and over exposure. The three bracketed photos will be merged into one image using HDR software.

Two HDR software that I use are Phomatix and Aurora HDR.

Photomatix Review

Aurora HDR Review

The below three images show an example of AEB. Notice the constant aperture size of f/8.0.

Normal Exposure

Under Exposure

Over Exposure

The above three photos were merged in Photomatix to produce the below HDR photo, but prior to its final post-processing steps in Lightroom or Photoshop. Consider this a middle step in HDR post-processing.

Mobile phones are now offering HDR capture. The HDR images are decent quality and convenient when you don’t want to carry around a camera. For controlled, HDR photography, it’s better to use RAW capture with a mirrorless or DSLR camera, and post process.