HDR Response

I originally posted a few HDR images in this post. I then received the following comment:

I prefer to see more what my eyes see in photos, to me these look almost fake , cool looking but still not capturing what the person would have seen at that particular moment of the picture being taken..

I just wanted to address this. When looking at a scenery with the human eye we can see any more ranges of light than a camera can. For example, at sunset our eyes can see both the details and colors in the sky and also the details in the landscape portion of the scene. Cameras on the other hand do not have this ability. If you were to expose properly for the sky then the landscape portion of the scene would be completely silhouetted, which is not what our eye would see.

To further demonstrate my point please view the following images.

HDR:


Original 3 photos it was formed from:




None of these photos are edited.

I use a program called Photomatix Pro to actually create the HDR image. It takes all of the best exposures for each part of the image and combines it into one. This "HDR" file is not readable by printers or computer screens so you need to then do what is tone mapping. I don't know a whole lot about tone mapping but it basically changes the HDR file into a JPEG/TIFF file that is viewable on computer screens and printers.

I hope this clarifies any confusion there may have been :) I totally recommend a book I am reading called Complete Guide To High Dynamic Range Digital Photography.

Have a good weekend!