What Is High Dynamic Range (HDR)?

The human eye is a pro at seeing details in a scene, even light or dark. Cameras are not! Cameras were built to take photos of already well-lit things, like the sun and other bright objects. When you're trying to take a picture of a dark room or a dimly lit street, your camera still tries to use its traditional settings—and ends up with an image that's too dark and doesn't have enough detail. High Dynamic Range (HDR) helps fix this problem by merging several photos of the same subject with different exposures. This helps give more information back to areas that would otherwise be too dark or washed out by overexposure. When you think of the world's most outstanding photographers, Gustave Le Gray might not come to mind. Le Gray pioneered HDR imaging, basically when you combine multiple photographs of the same scene into one print. It's like when your mom would make you pose for a picture with her and then go back inside and re-take it when she realized you had a booger hanging out of your nose. (Don't act like you never had one.) Le Gray did this to capture seascapes that could show the sea and sky in detail—which was impossible at the time because cameras couldn't handle it. He used two negatives for each subject (sky and sea), taken with different exposures because they required other lighting conditions. HDR photography used to be the realm of photographers and hobbyists. It needed much work: you had to take multiple pictures at different exposures, then combine them on your computer. The process was slow and tedious, but the results were terrific. Nowadays, getting those same stunning results with your phone is more accessible—all you need is one tap!