Something I've been wanting to comment on for a while now is High Dynamic Range (HDR) photography.
HDR has been a popular trend in photography for the last couple of years. Essentially, one takes multiple exposures of the same scene with different exposure settings to capture the deep shadows and bright highlights. These scenes are combined in photoshop or other HDR blending software and the end result is supposed to be a image that captures the full dynamic range of the scene (something a camera can't do in theory).
I've seen lots of HDR photography at shows, club competitions, on the internet, and almost all of them look bad to me. I can spot a poorly done HDR blend almost instanty. To me, the HDR look doesn't look natural, and mostly this is a result of poor technique, either in photoshop or with the camera itself.
I have one HDR image that I consider "sellable" quality. My active sales portfolio consists of close to 500 images, so we're talking a miniscule part of my sellable work is done in HDR. The reason for this is because I don't shoot HDR and have found that capturing the image correctly with the camera is a better approach.
Here's a test for you HDR enthusiests. One of these images is an HDR image, the other is not. I invite you to comment. Tell me which one you think is HDR and why you think it is HDR. I'd like you to explain your comment a little, just to keep it honest and not a 50/50 guess.
Both images were taken at times of the day when dynamic range in the scene can be beyond the ability of the camera to capture it. Perfect situations for HDR...or perfect situations for paying attention to how you take the photograph. You be the judge. Which shot is HDR?
This shot of Denver was taken at dusk, using a tripod.
Is this the HDR photograph?
