HDR Weather Photography

I've been getting into "HDR" weather photography lately. HDR stands for High Dynamic Range, and if I may quote WikiPedia, "more accurately represent(s) the range of intensity levels found in real scenes." What this means is that the photo ends up looking more like what you see in real life, by showing all ranges of light -- no overexposing, no underexposing. Here's an example of a photo I took of sunrise and fog two months ago on my morning walk:

I was frustrated that, while to my naked eye the scene looked excellent, the sun rising over ground fog, in the end the camera mostly captured the former. I could try brightness or contrast adjustments in Photoshop, but I'd end up still dissatisfied. Using HDR, I was able to brighten the ground to show what was really there:

There are several ways you can HDR. Some cameras do it by taking several exposures and combining them into one picture. This will get you the best results. You can take your own separate exposures (tripod please - they must be exactly the same) and combine them with ToneMapping software such as PhotoMatix. Or, you can take the lazy route, as I did, by having your ToneMapping software process only one photo and attempt to brighten the darks and soften the whites. Believe it or not, the example above was done with one photo and the PhotoMatix default settings!

Here's another example that I took October 22nd from my back porch. Great moon shot, but the fall leaves aren't visible.

Cue PhotoMatix processing - now we can see both:

Another problem I've had is this: The AccuWeather HQ sign is bright red, but any cloud shot with it reduces that red to a dark brown. Go go gadget HDR -- problem fixed. This photo was shot last Wednesday:

For a long time I resisted HDR because I didn't realize you could tonemap one photo, and because I saw a lot of bad examples of it out there. It can be used to really exaggerate your photos, but overuse makes them look to unrealistic - though it can be a cool artistic effect, as Local storm chaser Ron "R-Factor" Shawley did with this photo:

Photographers argue over whether or not HDR counts as "real photography," especially during contests. The official word on HDR for the AccuWeather.com Photo Gallery is that we will pick an HDR photo for the Moderator's Picks -- if it's not altered beyond reality.

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