HDRealPhoto.com

I was driving along the Mississippi and pulled off on this little road. Lo and behold there is railroad swing bridge. Didn’t expect it at all and of course had to take a few shots.

This is a great opportunity for an HDR photo. With the sun still strong and backlighting the bridge I took 6 exposures. Typically I try to get the sky they way I want for the darkest exposure. Then I increase shutter speed for 1 stop more until I reach what I want to expose for shadow detail.

I use Photomatix for most of my HDR photos. Depending on the subject I’ll let that determine how real to how surreal I want the photo to look. One problem I find with HDR is that green trees and other vegetation. Sometimes I’ll back off on the green saturation in Lightroom and adjust the luminance to get more natural vegetation.