Didn’t think so (for the record, the HDR is the bottom). That’s because this was a case where one RAW file gave me enough dynamic range to bring out the shadows and highlights. I should start by saying that this post is inspired in part by Rick Sammon’s post Goodbye HDR! Hello EDR?. In it, Rick talks about how many photographers are stepping away from HDR now that camera sensors are able to capture so much dynamic range in one shot. If you’re unfamiliar with HDR, which stands for high dynamic range, it’s a method of combining several shots, some underexposed, some overexposed, to avoid having to make some parts of the image too dark and some parts too light. I’m currently using 32-bit HDR. You can find a tutorial for it here.
The shots at the very top of the post, however, are not of a high-contrast scene requiring HDR. I don’t like to use HDR when the scene doesn’t call for it. First of all, HDR images, even when done with a tripod, are susceptible to fringing and ghosting (which can sometimes be removed by masking back in one of the RAW files). Why waste time trying to get rid of those problems when you don’t have to? Second of all, having all those extra RAW files takes up a ton of extra space on your hard drive. Being an amateur photographer on a budget, I can’t justify buying tons of extra hard drives. Shooting RAW most of the time is already takes up plenty hard drive space.
Just in case you were wondering if there is a difference in the two images at the top, let’s have a look. First, here are what the 3 RAW files looked like untouched (I used the EV 0 for the image which was not HDR):
Now, a pixel peeper might say there is more noise in the image on the right, but I say, if I ever blow up my image that big, I will probably not be standing that close to it anyway.
What are your thoughts on the matter? Do you think HDR is always a better choice when you can do it, or do you think sometimes one RAW is all it takes?
