Wednesday 6 May 2015

A day out track side with HDR photography.

What a lovely sunny day.  Thought I'd go out with the camera and follow the afternoon service to Garahbara for a bit of trainspotting.

These were done using HDR (High Dynamic Range) pics and a bit of PaintShop Pro.  Still getting the hang of it, but more practice to come,

HDR is where you take 3 or more pics of the same scene.   It is used where you have a high contrast of light and shade.  Very bright areas and very dark areas in the same scene.  I've used 3 pics.  One under exposed, one normal, and the other over exposed.

The under exposed pic brings the bright area back to normal, the under exposed shows up the dark areas, and the normal..... well normal.

HDR functions of PaintShop then combines all three images, taking the appropriately exposed areas of each pic, giving toned down bright areas, and lightened up dark areas.

Example:  When you take a pic of a loco, the underframe and bogies (which are usually black) are dark and you don't see much detail.  So you "over expose" the pic, which then gives you the details of the bogies/underframe, but the rest of the pic is over exposed.  HDR functions then combines multiple pics giving an overall even exposure.

When I get the hang of it, I'll put up a page on how it's done and the steps involved.