Getting tired of this HDR stuff yet? I hope not, there’s a lot more coming. If you are just joining us be sure to check out the last few posts to get up to speed.
keepin it steady
Since we established last time around that you either have or have not a digital camera that can handle manual settings, this time we need to figure out what you are going to do with it if you do have it. More specifically, where are you going to put it. Without getting extremely in-depth (just yet) about the why, suffice it to say that it is fundamental to HDR photography (for the most part) that you have a way to keep your camera completely still for more than one photo at a time. As stated so eloquently by Trey Ratcliff, ”unless you have the steady arms of a late-model Terminator robot” you’d better have a tripod so that you can handle something called ‘bracketing‘, which we will be discussing later.
Depending on the heft of your camera model you might have some issues to address. You are going to *need* a tripod to hold your camera completely still. Blurry pictures just don’t tend to command the awe and respect of your peeps the way that a razor-sharp, crispity-cracklin’ photo will and the fact is that the process of creating high dynamic range images will accentuate any blur, camera shake, or shifts from one frame to the next. So go forth, find a tripod, and keep it solid.
