HDR - Good or Bad??

[Bobblejack]

We recently went on a Canaries cruise. I took my E-M1iii, 12-100, 100-400 and Laowa 10mm (the latter two because I couldn't bring myself to NOT take them ). It wasn't really a 'photography' trip so I was just taking 'holiday snaps'. I found myself using the HDR setting for pretty much all of the images. I know it's down to personal preference, but is it possible to overuse this function? Are there any downsides? Just interested to see if other people use this function much.

[LadyG]

It's more occasional for me - usually when there's a huge contrast in lighting/shadow. However, I often end up using the middle of 3 and adjusting that in post anyway! I don't use it for gig photography, things move too quickly for that.

[gazza95]

Definitely occasional use for me as well. Issue is that HDR takes multiple images, which is not what I want for moving subjects.

Gary

[Bobblejack]

Yes; HDR only really works well on static subjects; which I noticed more when I got home and downloaded onto my tablet. I was mindful that viewing on the camera was not going to give me the best impression of IQ.

[drmarkf]

I quite often shoot a 3-frame, 2-stop HDR series for landscape/architecture and IR images, especially when there’s a lot of contrast.

It’s so easy and quick to merge these into a linear DNG in Capture One that it’s a bit of a no-brainer. I only do it when I’m concerned over dynamic range, and the CO defaults usually give a pretty natural-looking result, which can be edited to taste. It copes with a bit of subject movement, but if the image is for critical use it’s a good idea to check for artefacts in things that may move (eg leaves).

For images where the middle shot has coped well with the dynamic range on the CO histogram, I don’t bother.

I only ever aim for a result that looks real - the ‘HDR look’, so popular a decade ago, is just ridiculous.

[Ian]

I sometimes bracket and merge to HDR in Lightroom later, but not in the camera.

Ian

[Bobblejack]

I'm curious why you don't use the in-camera merge options.

[Tram]

Never tried it and nothing I've seen has ever made me want to.
Not keen on HDR televisions either, prefer the more natural colouring look.

[pdk42]

Depends what you mean by “HDR”.

If you mean the in-camera JPEG feature, then I personally avoid it like the plague - for the simple reason that I never shoot JPEGs.

If you mean heavily over processed images with obviously fake tones, then for obvious reasons I’d avoid that too.

But if you mean shooting a bracketed EV burst in raw for later stacking to deal with DR beyond the sensor’s capability, then I’m all for it and use it a lot (maybe 50% of my images are EV stacked bursts).

[Bobblejack]

The one I'm referring to is in-camera merging, presumably just on the jpeg.