PIERRE JORDAAN

Canon EOS 5D Mark III Canon EF 16 – 32 mm

PIERRE WRITES: I attended a weeklong photography conference in Sabie, Mpumalanga, which gave me plenty of time to photograph all the best-known waterfalls and viewpoints in this scenic area. I took this photo of the Pinnacle outside Graskop at sunrise. I used a tripod and a remote shutter release. The clouds were pretty and the Pinnacle made for a good focal point.

I took five photos using five different shutter speeds and combined them into one image using the HDR (High Dynamic Range) technique. I wanted to ensure that there was good detail in the foreground, while still exposing properly for the area around the sun. My aperture was f16 and ISO 200.

TOAST SAYS: You might not know it, but you almost certainly use HDR whenever you take a picture with your smartphone. Modern phones have “HDR on” as a default setting – it’s why all your cell pics come out so well!

You don’t have to use HDR with every photo you take. Save it for certain scenes that really need it, like sunsets or sunrises. All photographers know the dilemma with these pics: You either have to expose for the bright part of the frame (the sun and the sky, where all the colours are) or for the darker foreground, where you might find interesting details like the cliffs and the forest in Pierre’s pic. But which to choose? Expose for the sky and the foreground is too dark. Expose for the foreground and the sky gets blown out.

That’s where HDR comes in – you can take different exposures and blend them into one, giving you a perfect version of the scene. Where would the five different parts of Pierre’s scene be? I would guess he exposed for the sun, then the area directly above the sun, and then a slightly darker part of the sky, like in the top right corner. This would allow all those saturated sunrise colours to come into their own. For the foreground, an exposure on the Pinnacle and another on a darker part of the forest would probably suffice.

The result is one of the best pics of the Pinnacle you’ll see in a long time. Good job, Pierre.