HDR – high dynamic range pictures

An HDR – high dynamic range image is a picture composed from 2, 3, 4, 5 or more exposures. For example an HDR picture composed from three pictures requires one underexposed, one normal exposed and one overexposed picture. Then with softwares like Photomatix, Luminace HDR or HDR Efex Pro you create the final picture. Over time I have developed from using Photomatix moved to HDR efex Pro created by NIK software Collection which works very well together with Lightroom. For my HDR pictures I use mainly Lightroom 5 and NIK Software to do the final composing.

Giant’s Causeway and Dunluce Castle

Giant’s Causeway HDR

My most recent HDR image project took place in Northern Ireland at the Giant’s Causeway and Dunluce Castle. The first time I went to the Giants Causeway was in the year 2012. I was overwhelmed by its beauty and so it was ultimately the plan to come back with better photography equipment. In January 2014 I finally went back to visit. The advantage of wintertime is that there are far less tourists, the air is clear and the sunset is fairly early. Even in January were lots of visitors and it was hard to get a shot with no people in it. To have patience is a very important thing as a photographer.

Equipment and technique Giants Causeway

I brought with me a Nikon D610, a 24mm wide angle lens, a polarising filter and a tripod for this shot. The polarising filter gave me the possibility to stop light reflections on the water surface so that the pictures show also the stones in the water. I used for the Giant’s Causeway HDR pictures mostly 3 exposures with -1.5 / 0 / +1.5 stops. The exposures itself took roughly 10-60 seconds each with an aperture with 16-32. Those long time exposures created the soft and foggy look to the water. I tried different angles, directions and positions. Thank God I had really good wind-proof gear, it was really cold and windy. After all I combined with Lightroom and Nik Software the final pictures.