Equipment for HDR Digital Photography

Series Summary

Photography is the practice of making images by exposing film or another medium to a timed flash of light. The basic equipment used for photography has changed dramatically in the last decades, many people finding digital photography an inexpensive and creative hobby. We use photography as a means of communication worldwide: to sell things, to tell stories, capture memories, evoke passions, fight for causes, make new meanings, and inspire the imagination. High-Dynamic Range imaging (HDR or HDRI) is the next step of digital photography. The idea is simple: merge a few or several various shots of a single scene to create an image that overcomes the natural range limitations of traditional, single-shot photography. The resulting image displays more detail and clarity in shadows and highlights, and in between.

Brandon Sarkis will show you step-by-step how to make an HDR image. This free video series has every step it takes, from equipment and shooting multiple exposures to selecting which images to merge and initial editing. Brandon uses LightRoom to combine his first exposures, each strong in one area but at the expense of other details. Watch as he gives you every tip you need to get through the difficult but worthwhile process of producing HRD images on your home computer.

Video Transcript

"My name is Brandon Sarkis on behalf of Expert Village. Today I'm going to give you an overview and introduction to HDR, or high dynamic range photography. Let's start off with the things you're going to need to take an HDR photo, or to make an HDR photo. First and foremost, camera. You're going to want something that's capable of doing multiple exposure shooting or auto exposure bracketing. It doesn't have to be something really big and nice like a DSLR, you can actually do it with a lot of new point and shoots, off our multiple exposure bracketing or auto exposure bracketing as a feature set. The next thing you're going to need, this computer, and you're going to need two particular kinds of software. You're going to need an HDR software, or high dynamic range software. You can look online, you'll see there's about eight or ten that I know of different software packages, there's also plug-ins for popular things like Photoshop that you can use. They all pretty much achieve the same result, there's just different ways of doing it. Some are Windows only, some are MAC or Windows, some work in Linux, so, fair enough. And you're also going to need an image editor, something along the lines of like a Photoshop or a light remover and aperture or something. So, knowing that, let's get started and I'll give you a brief tour of how to set up your camera next."