Kuala Lumpur - Putrajaya HDR with sony

Pertama Complex

CIMB Building

Green Flat Putrajaya

From a practical standpoint, a modern digital sensor has about 7–9 stop tonal range. This doesn't allow us to capture wide tonal range images accurately. What we end up with in this case is an image that must favor either the shadows, or the highlights.

By using multiple exposures and merging them,  HDR allows us to extend that tonal range and capture detail all the way from the brightest highlights to the darkest shadows.

I refer to figure 1 again. In this image, we are able to see detail on the sunlit water, as well as in the shadows of the tree. If this had been shot with one capture, either the highlights would have been blown out, or the shadows would have blocked. This was shot as a 9 stop bracket, allowing good detail throughout.

There are two types of contrast ranges: Global and Localized. 

The image above is an example of controlling Global contrast to achieve continuous detail throughout the image. In this case, we want to make the entire contrast range fit our output. Without this treatment, either end of the tonal range might be compromised.

But there are times when we come upon a scene that seems to have a normal tonal range, yet when we look at the file, we find that shadows have no "meat" to them or highlights are hot and lifeless.

Figure 2 is one such image. Seemingly, it has a soft tonal range, but in fact is a very complex image, encompassing at least two separate tonal ranges. This is an example of localized contrast. In it, we have the bright highlights on the steam pipes of the train. We also have micro contrast areas deep down in the shadows, which need to have detail. Global contrast is represented in the entire overall tonal range of the bright highlights down to the deep shadows. However, without attention to the localized contrast in the shadows, they would have died,

Even though this image was captured on a cloudy day, it still benefits from an HDR treatment. It is monochromatic. Yet because of all of the minute highlights and dark areas, it has  more contrast that one might think.

whatever HDR with sonydigital1

Sony Sunset

Bukit Jalil - Sony

Kuala Lumpur - SOGO

Kuala Selangor Mosque - Sony

Sony NEX-5 and NEX-3 cameras

When we first heard that the Sony NEX-5 or NEX-3 can create merged images (they name it HDR) from multiple shots in camera we first expected this feature to be more of a marketing trick. It turns out to be quite real and useful instead. There are actually two possibilities to create HDR images with the NEX-5:

Create in camera merged images

Shoot bracketed photos with different exposures

Create in camera merged images

In this case the camera creates two images:

JPEG from the middle exposure

JPEG merged from 3 images. You can set the EV range from 1-6 EV. We mostly use 3 EV.

Before we show some samples lets look at the pros and cons.

Pro

NEX camera creates good quality merged images

The 7 fps of the NEX shooting helps that not much moves inside the frame during the shooting of all 3 exposures

Con

The middle exposure image cannot be saved as RAW (you have to shoot in JPEG Fine)

The processing takes some extra time. This means you have to wait to get the camera ready for the next shot

The images clearly need some post processing. Not sure this is really a con for us because it is hard to believe that the camera could do a perfect job. As the result the camera produces very soft and de-saturated images.

In the ideal world we would like to be able to get all exposures as RAW files and the merged image as well. If this would be too hard to implement then Sony should at least allow to get the middle exposure as a RAW file because we are not really happy with the NEX JPEG quality (shadows are way too much crushed for our taste).

Note: All sample photos in this article were shot freehand. Combined with the excellent NEX LCD this allows shooting positions that are hard to get with a tripod (e.g. overhead shots).