I’ve been hearing a lot about HDR and wondering if I might start incorporating it into some of my photography. From what I can see, HDR is an effective tool when you are dealing with wildly different exposed areas in a photograph. In northern Nevada it is quite easy to blow out the sky when trying to shoot a landscape. Anyway, I experimented a bit today. First I did a quick bit of research on the intertubes, just to figure out the mechanics of it in Photoshop, and then I went out into the front yard and took photos. Using a tripod, I set my f-stop to 22, ISO to 100 and took multiple shots adjusting shutter speed each time to properly expose for the sky, the mountains, foreground, etc. I also did the same thing looking out through our front door. Here are the results.

A view of the mountains from our front yard. © Carissa Snedeker

Normally to get this kind of definition in the colorless landscape I would have to blow out the sky, so I kind of like how the sky looks here.

Looking toward the mountains through the leafless windbreak. © Carissa Snedeker

I really like the sky in this one.

Finally, I shot this in our living room looking out on our front yard through our storm door (I live in the desert…we only have lawn in the backyard).  Shots like this are really where HDR appears to provide the greatest assist. In order to get any blue from the sky and still properly expose the interior of the house, HDR is a nice tool.  I am not that happy with this particular photo, but I wanted to share it anyway.

Looking out the front door. © Carissa Snedeker

I have much to learn if I want to use this tool more effectively.