Photo Answers
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When I shoot highcontrast landscape scenes, I still rely on filters – but is it better to shoot several exposures and get the balance I want in post-production?
High-contrast conundrum
QKim Delaney
AThe answer to this question is partly down to personal choice, and partly down to how much time you want to spend in post-production. I believe physical filters still have a place in my kit bag – but if
I’m being honest, I no longer come out in a cold sweat if I’ve been daft enough to forget to pack them!
I’ve written about shooting three or more images to blend them into a naturallooking finished image many times, and a good finished result is certainly the most important thing. Both methods still require good technique and ultimately, the viewer doesn’t really care – they just want to enjoy the photo. The advancements in processing
software make blending several images together for a good finished photo much easier than it used to be, so taking this route has its attractions. If you process your HDR in a natural way, it’s hard, if not impossible, to tell how an image has been created.
The example image shown here was taken at dawn on the Isle of Skye, shooting directly into the light. It is a combination of five images – that’s one at the exposure given by the camera at the time, then one each taken at -2, -1, +1 and +2 stops. With all the detail I’d captured, I could have had an image that showed more foreground detail in the shadows, but that wouldn’t have been true to the scene so I have still allowed some areas to go to pure black.