Balance landscapes

Merge images together for that HDR look

One of the first things we’re taught is to expose for the highlights, because it’s much easier to bring back details in the shadows when editing. But sometimes the highlights are so bright, this method causes the shadows to clip. When that happens, it doesn’t matter how large your Raw files are or how good your editing software is, that data is lost forever.

This situation is particularly prevalent when shooting a landscape towards the sun. One way to balance exposures is to use a graduated neutral density filter, but if you don’t own an ND grad or simply don’t have enough time to faff around attaching filters, auto-exposure bracketing might be the answer.

This function tells your camera to take a sequence of images, each with varying exposures. How many images you capture and the exposure value between each shot will depend on your camera’s ability and personal preference. We captured a three-shot bracket in one-stop increments: one image was underexposed by one stop, one image was neutral and one image was overexposed by one stop.

This range of exposures is designed to capture details in both the darkest shadows and the brightest highlights. Those details are then merged together to create a single high-dynamicrange photo in post. Some people don’t like HDRS because they can look fabricated, but if you’re disciplined enough not to push the dynamic range of an image too far, you can produce natural HDRS that everyone can enjoy.