Five Reasons to Shoot HDR Photos

While HDR photography has been around for ages, it has only been getting popular in the last few years.  That said, there are still some diehard traditionalists out there that don’t view HDR photography as real photography.  While it is certainly a different art form, I firmly believe that there is plenty of room for everyone.

Here are five reasons why I think you should consider investing in learning how to shoot HDR photos.

1) Capture images not possible through traditional techniques.

The sensors on even the nicest and most expensive DSLRs are only capable of gathering so much light.  So if you are trying to shoot a scene that has a wide exposure range, it can be extremely difficult, if not impossible to capture all of the details and nuances that you would like.  HDR allows you to capture all of these details. Have you ever taken a photo of a sunset and captured spectacular cloud formations and sunlight, only to have a foreground that was almost black?  This is no more when shooting HDR photos.

Blue Mountains, Australia. Photo by Yury

2) Improve post-processing skills

Let’s face it, we are in a digital age, and nearly all of the professional photography done these days has some sort of post-processing done to it.  While (currently) the only way to produce an HDR image is via post processing techniques, you are going to have to become more familiar with tools such as Photomatix and Photoshop in order to get high quality results with your HDR images.  By doing this however, you will improve other aspects of your photography as well.  The more time you spend in Photoshop in any capacity, the more proficient you will become.  And with the new features in CS5, there is even more reason to explore the potential of HDR.

3) Expand your skill set

As photography continues to evolve, there will be an increasing demand for professionals to broaden their skills, and many amateurs are going to want to keep up as well.  Over the coming months and years, I expect HDR to be seen in a much more prominent way within advertising and traditional media.  Wouldn’t  you like to already be ahead of the game when you meet someone who is looking to have some HDR work done?

4) Impress others

I don’t care who you are, good HDR photography is impressive.  Hell, even bad HDR is impressive to someone who doesn’t know any better. I think anyone who has some experience with this type of photography started out with images that might be a little too surreal.  I still probably fall into this camp, but that doesn’t mean that even those photos don’t impress the majority of people that check it out.  Now just imagine how impressive you will be when you actually know what you are doing!

Too surreal for some. Very impressive to others.

5) Create a more accurate rendition of the real life scene.

We’ve all been there, trying to create a photograph that captures a scene exactly how we remember it.  And usually what happens, is we fail.  Well with HDR by increasing the range of details that can be presented in the photograph you are able to produce an image bears a much closer resemblance to the way your mind remembers the scene.  The best photographers can create images that have a very 3D feel which is a big benefit of this type of work.

I could go on and on about reasons to hone your HDR skills, but I think this should give you a pretty good idea of some of the benefits that can be had from checking out that trial of Photomatix!

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Tagged as: hdr images, hdr photography, HDR Photos, hdr skills, reasons to shoot hdr