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Monday 18 March 2013

HDR - RAW or JPEG?

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Those of you who are not very familiar with photography terms might not have heard about this, but most of you surely have seen this type of photograph, without even noticing it. Apparently, there is an intense debate in the photographic community about this special and somewhat new domain. So, what is HDR photography and why should you know about this?
First of all, it stands for High Dynamic Range and many professional and amateur photographers alike have tried this technique. In the age of digital photography, there have been many advances in the field of photographic processes and techniques. High Dynamic Range is just one of these fields and it has its adepts, but also its contestants.
Basically, a normal photograph has some light areas and some dark or shade areas. The High Dynamic Range stands for an increased dynamic range between these two areas, created by several different methods. The easiest way is to take two or more photographs at different exposures, usually a normal exposure image, an underexposed image and an overexposed image.
These image can then be used and combined to create a high dynamic image, with an increased amount of details. This can be achieved by using a software program that has this function, resulting a visually appealing image. Although there are many ways of creating this type of photographs, this is usually the simplest one, as modern digital cameras have the function to create bracketed images.
There is also the question whether to shoot in RAW or JPEG when doing HDR photography. As most experts would teach and as common sense dictates, if you are serious about photography, then always shoot RAW. This gives photographers a greater control on the final image, as you can usually edit most characteristics of the photograph.
As High Dynamic Range photographs need a lot of editing to get the perfect result, RAW format is preferred by most photographers. This does not mean that if you shoot in JPEG you cannot get a high dynamic image, it just means that you usually get better results in RAW. Unless you are an expert professional photographer, or an amateur with no editing skills, then always shoot in RAW.
The problem with HDR photography is that not everyone appreciates it and there are photographers who consider this cheating and not respecting the rules of photography. By combining multiple images with different exposures, the resulting image has a deep dynamic range, seldom resulting in surreal photographs and sometimes the results are even unnatural.
This characteristic of high dynamic range photographs is mostly contested by some photographers. But this domain also has many fans and the field is surely appealing, especially in commercial photography, where there is a need for extremely attractive images.
Whatever the reason might be, if you are thinking about trying high dynamic photography, remember that this is just another form of photography and you still have to know everything about photography in order to get good results. Also, remember to always specify how you obtained the results.

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