my name is mwd

This is my first attempt at an HDR photo, taken at Milton Farm Shop last Sunday:

The idea of HDR is that you take several pictures of a scene, and then combine them so that you get the best of all exposures. Normally, with a picture like that above, the sky would have washed out if you could see detail on the engine, but if you could see detail on the sky then the engine would be too dark. With HDR you take a set of shots to get all the bits you want, and then combine them to get everything (for the above I used Photomatix Pro, which I’ll have to play around with some more).

Quite often you get something that looks slightly unreal, somewhat ethereal even – just search of places like Flickr for the HDR tag. Still, it can produce some really nice results if used carefully. I expect HDR will become increasingly popular, and I’d not be surprised if we see it become something that cameras do automatically for you in the future.