Sunrise on the High Plains – Sky Watch Friday VIII

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An Exercise in High Dynamic Range (HDR) Photography

The following is a photograph taken on our drive from Texas to Alaska and back. In fact it was the first photo made on the trip. It was made on the grasslands of the Texas High Plains at about 3000’ altitude. The scene shows grasslands with a tree-lined creek and a brushy fencerow. There are a few farmhouses on a dirt road, visible in the distance through the lifting fog.

You will have to click on the photographs to see the detail and dynamic range.

It was made with a telephoto just after sunrise. The sky was uniformly cloudy as the lifting fog burned off. Ansel Adams would have said that compromises would have to be made in the exposure since the picture ranged from really bright(zone 8) to almost pure blacks(zone 2).

The human eye is a fantastic instrument, since it can take in a scene like this and send it to the brain with all the details intact and then store it for future memory recall. Whereas the camera will struggle to capture all the detail in a single photographic exposure. Even with matrix metering, it is an average and an approximation at best. As a photographer, we take several varying exposures and hope one will be adequate.

I shoot RAW format in order to make any later adjustments in exposure.
The following photographs demonstrate different solutions to obtain a decent photograph.

Do Nothing
Matrix metering – Average exposure. No detail visible

Corrected in Photoshop
Adjusted curves, levels, brightness and contrast.
More detail, but not exactly as I remember.

Corrected with Photomatix Pro 3
Combined 3 exposures to capture the full dynamic range,
capable of viewing on a monitor or printing.

The above photo is what it looked like to the best of my memory.
The entire scene was bathed in a golden glow.
Remember, you are looking through fog.

Note: A Photomatix generated photograph usually requires some final tweaking of levels in Photoshop.

Faded Sepia
I included this for those that like Sepia

Please leave a comment and tell me what you think. Do you use Photoshop, Photomatix and/or other HDR software? Or what touch-up software do you use? There is a shareware or maybe a free version of HRD software available on the internet. I looked at the shareware version and it did not seem to be user friendly.

To play Sky Watch Friday visit Wiggers World.

Troy and Martha