Top 10 Tips For Stunning HDR: Sunrise and Sunset

4. Sunrise, sunset, sunshine!
The harsh directional light provided by both sunrise and sunset can make accurate exposures a bit of a problem. Again, HDR photography proves beneficial as it will allow you to blend and tonemap several different exposures to provide a full range of detail through the shot. It will allow you to include a relevant and enticing amount of foreground detail that will, more often that not, juxtapose the light and detail of the sunset perfectly and in a way unachievable as a single exposure.

5. High Contrast
When you’re out looking for potential HDR shots, but are struggling to find an opportune vista, a good test of the scene is to consider how much contrast is present.

Chances are that if there isn’t much contrast within the scene you are looking to capture then a conventional capture should suffice.
However, if the scene features extreme bright and dark areas yet you still want an even exposure, then bracketing off multiple exposures will reveal detail throughout the shot and will more than likely offer a ‘true to the eye’ representation of the scene.

6. Interiors
The many cracks and crevices of an interior scene can often baffle your camera’s sensor into struggling with exposure. It can also be an issue if you require both the view to the exterior and the interior in detail, for example if you want to expose a scenic view out of a window and the detail of the inside at the same time. However, bracket shots at the extreme ends of the exposure range and you’ll get both inside and out in detail. One of the main advantages of this is that you will no longer have to worry about the highlights blowing out when trying to get the fine architectural detail of a historic building in focus, for example.

7. Unconventional Subject
Those subjects that, no doubt, lend themselves perfectly to the HDR treatment dominate the world of HDR. As mentioned previously, there is something satisfying about boosting up a skyful of storm clouds to bursting point in your chosen software.

However, why not turn the technique to a different subject matter and get a fresh look on your HDR images? Though sometimes difficult to capture due to the time it takes to bracket images, an HDR treatment of a conventional portrait can be striking and reveal textures that give the subject a real sense of emotion.

Also, night photography is often seen as the domain of long-exposure images, but why not bracket some long exposures and see what the effect is like?