Here we are at the Start

Mike Stapleton Photography

A LIFE IN HDR

Ok so your  thinking another blog well yes it is. and the purpose of his blog is to drive traffic to my website and sell some of MY HDR Images.

But i will also be posting hint and tips to help you improve your photographic skills. This will be done in a non techie way so you can under stand it way i understand it. so here goes.

St Mary's bay Brixham UK

this is the style of photography i specialise in 

HDR ( high dynamic range )

what is HDR 

 Cameras are limited to the amount of image detail they can record when the sensor is exposed to light. Whether you’re using the auto settings or are taking pics using skillfully tuned manual settings, your goal is trying to take advantage of the available light to maximize the detail in the result image. The problem is, when you’re shooting heavy shadows and bright lights, you are forced into losing detail in one range or the other.

A skilled photographer can tune Their elements of exposure to achieve great detail in shadows or highlights, or choose the middle of the road, “proper” exposure solution, and lose some detail in both. Lots of detail in the shadows can give you thin, washed out highlights, while good detail in those same highlight areas will result in all shadows immediately jumping to a solid, dark black. Ordinarily, you’d want the “goldilocks” exposure that is somewhere in the middle.

Using this sort of “normal” exposure, where a photographer has to make these sorts of tough decisions, is sometimes called “Standard” or “Low” Dynamic Range imaging. This is what ordinary cameras shoot, 

The basic idea of creating a combination image with multiple exposures is not new to photography. As long as cameras have had the limitation of standard ranges, clever photographers have been hacking ways to create the best possible image. Brilliant photographer Ansel Adams used dodging and burning techniques to selectively expose his prints and create amazing rich detail in images. When digital photography was finally viable enough to address this problem, the first HDR filetypes were created. However, the HDR filetypes used by most photographers today do not use this method (i.e. capturing multiple exposures into single file, beyond the range of ordinary imaging). Most so-called “HDR” images are actually multiple exposures combined into an HDR image, and then Tone mapped into a single standard range image.

in simple terms the image above was made using the images below and combined together using HDR software Like Photomatix or Photoshop