How to Photograph High Dynamic Range (HDR) Images.

In one of my earlier posts (Dynamic Range Extraction) I talked about determining your camera's sensors dynamic range and maximizing the shadow and highlight details. This method works for lower dynamic range situations. However, when you have highlights and shadows greater than 1-1.5 stops you start losing detail in the shadows and highlights. In these situations you have to rely on bracketed exposures.

Bracketed exposures are multiple exposures taken of the scene using different exposure values, by changing Aperture, Shutter speed or ISO. For example, the image above is a HDR image with exposure combinations of 0Ev, -2Ev and +2Ev (in Aperture priority mode).

Settings: Mount your camera on a tripod, compose the image to your preference, set your white balance to a fixed preset or K value (do not leave it on Auto mode). Now comes the tricky part you can either change your Aperture, Shutter speed or ISO to change exposure values (Ev). If you bracket using Aperture priority mode, set your ISO to a fixed value and adjust your Shutter speed to +/- 1-5 depending on the dynamic range of the scene. This is the preferred method of bracketing. The alternate is setting your Shutter speed to a fixed value and bracketing your Aperture values - this method will not work for shallow depth of field situations. Then the final method is setting your Aperture and Shutter speed to a fixed value and bracketing your ISO - this method will not work with low end cameras with (small ISO ranges), additionally this method will create alot of noise in your images.
Using the fixed Aperture method, you can manually change the exposure or set the camera on bracketing (most cameras now have this feature inbuilt), all you have to do is set the +/- Ev range and the camera does the rest.

Post processing: In your photo editing software adjust the alignment and white balance of all three (or more) bracketed images and merge to HDR using your prefered  HDR software (Photoshop, Photomatix, etc). Adjust the image setting to your preference making sure you do not have blown highlight and black shadows. I prefer boosting the saturation on my HDR images to make them more painterly.

Camera settings: ISO200, f/22, WB Daylight, bracketing - 1/8s (0), 1/30s(-2Ev), 0.5s(+2Ev).