Shooting HDR Photos
I've finally gotten used to using my Canon camera after owning it for a year and a half or so and decided to take the dip into shooting High Dynamic Range photography. The Canon camera has the ability to do Auto Bracketing Exposure from the menu but I was instructed to use Manual mode since you have much more control over the camera and can decided on the correct exposure using the histogram the camera provides to determine if the shot is correct. The basic steps to shoot HDR using the Digital Rebel XTi (and probably XSi and 40D, etc) are:
- Set the camera to M (Manual Mode)
- You need a few shots
- One shot where the histogram is gradually spread out on the left side
- One shot where the histogram is gradually spread out on the right side
- A few shots where the histogram is in the middle
To use manual mode, you'll need to know how to set the ISO, aperture and shutter speed of your camera. On my Canon, the ISO is set from a menu on the camera, the shutter speed is set by the wheel on the top of camera and the aperture is set by holding down a button on the back of the camera and then spinning the wheel that alone sets the shutter speed. On top of this, you'll need to know what the various ISO settings are good for. A quick guide line for ISO settings are:
- ISO 100 = outdoors
- ISO400 = shady outdoors scenes
- ISO800 and 1600 = indoors
When I get back from vacation I hope to see if my first attempt at HDR photography turns out as well as I think it will.