Just thought I would mention that the new
Pentax K7 DSLR has built in HDR capture mode which will auto-magically blend
three separate exposures to increase the dynamic range of the camera. The
camera also has a Dynamic
Range function to help
with contrasty lighting. The K7 can also capture multiple exposures to a single
image.
Many people seem to confuse HDR
photography with Tone Mapping of multiple exposures of the same subject (or at
the very least people seem to bastardize the term HDR). In the case of the
Pentax K7 I would guess that the final image is saved as 16 bit image unlike
the 32bit images that are generated with HDR software from multiple exposures.
So it would seem that with the
introduction of the K7 HDR photography has been brought into the mainstream of
photograph technique. How long till Nikon or Canon will do the same?
Personally I enjoy looking at over the
top tone mapped images; a lot of those do fail to keep my attention for very
long and many seem to suffer from the same technical flaws. But I will spend
time looking through Flickr’s HDR collection to find the occasional
jewel. I still think it’s a valid technique even when it stretches
realistic renderings.
Don
Bryant