Experimenting in HDR

We went to the Franconia Sculpture Park on Saturday. We usually go there once a year to see what new and weird sculptures they have. Emphasis on weird.

This sculpture was installed recently, and it's huge--over 23 feet tall. Some of those parts are from actual steam shovels.

Here's another head-scratching creation.


Techie Corner
I figured this would be a great place to experiment with HDR. That sounds like some kind of drug, doesn't it? Actually, HDR stands for High Dynamic Range. It's a fancy way of saying that you want to have a wider range of light and dark tones in one image than your camera can handle. To achieve this wider range, you have to take at least three images and vary the exposure. (under-exposed, over-exposed, normally exposed) Then Photoshop (and other programs) will combine all the varying exposures into one image.

Both of the images above are HDR creations. If I exposed only for the sky, the sculptures would be too dark. If I exposed only for the sculptures, the sky would be a washout.

Here are single images of both the sculptures. This is the best I could do without HDR.