HDR Iowa City

HDR, or high dynamic range photography, is a photographic technique of blending several different exposures, both bright and dark, to combine into a composite photo that shows detail in both the brightest and darkest parts of the photos without excluding either.

The photo above of the Old Capitol Building was created by local photographer and Patch contributor Todd Adamson.

Do you know of any other examples of good HDR photography in Iowa City? Feel free to send links or upload them to this article.

Update (7/10/2011): A reader, Brian Pinney, wanted to add to my definition of HDR to better clarify what it is and why the image above doesn't show off the true advantages of HDR photography. Pinney wrote:

A true HDR shot uses multiple exposures taken separately (typically one right after the other). Unless the people in the image are fake, they would be blurred or appearing at different places in the image due to their natural movement through multiple pictures.

This picture seems more like a single image exposure that has been edited after the fact to produce an over exposed and under exposed counter to the regular shot. As given in the article: "HDR, or high dynamic range photography, is a photographic technique of blending several different exposures, both bright and dark, to combine into a composite photo that shows detail in both the brightest and darkest parts of the photos without excluding either."

Thus, true HDR would be able to resolve the detail in the lamps (that are blown out - over exposed to the point of showing no detail) as well as the detail in the shadowed trees (which appear as "black" even though they're green - under exposed to the point of showing no detail). Once that detail is lost (due to a regular exposure that can't capture the full dynamic range), you can't get it back except by another exposure from a different shot.

Editing or "after the fact" changing of exposures can't regain detail that was never captured (this is the true value of HDR... capturing detail outside the capabilities of the dynamic range of the camera and including that in the picture). It's possible for "artistic" expression that the photographer chose not to show all the green of the trees or the bulbs inside the lamp (possible with true HDR)