Pseudo HDR

Digital Cameras are no doubt brilliant devices. Their tiny CCD or CMOS chips can capture an enormous amount of detail. However, their dynamic range- the range of brightness values they can capture in one picture, is limited, a lot more than the human eye.

You may have noticed a lot of pictures with "washed out"(completely white, lacking any detail) skies or too dark subjects. In some cases, this problem can be fixed by using a flash to balance the lighting. However, you cannot expect to light up a huge building using a flash, to balance it against the bright sky!

HDR or High Dynamic Range technique to the rescue! This technique involves taking the same picture at multiple exposure settings and then merging and tone-mapping them using a computer. Usually 3 photographs are taken, exposures separated by 1 to 2 stops. Most cameras have an "Auto-Bracketing" setting, which takes these 3 pictures automatically when you hold the shutter release down.

There are 2 problems with this technique:
1) you need a tripod or a steady surface to keep the camera from moving between the 3 shots.
2) you cannot have a moving object in the frame, or you will get multiple "ghosts" of the object.

Since I don't like using a tripod and searching for a steady surface can limit compositions, I prefer using another technique called pseudo HDR when needed. This technique doesn't extract as much dynamic range as normal HDR, but it is much simpler and can be used for handheld shots or moving objects.

So basically you shoot in RAW format-> this stores a lot more detail than jpeg(by detail here I mean variation of tones, not more pixels!). You have to underexpose the snap by 1 to 2 stops to preserve some detail in the sky while retaining detail in the shadows.

After this, we have to post process to extract all the detail we can from the shadows and highlights:
Open it in Adobe Camera RAW/ Photoshop/ Lightroom/ Aperture
Change the following settings roughly to these values. Tweak to your taste.
Contrast between 90 to 110
Brightness between 70 to 90
Blacks between 5 to 7
Recovery to 100%
now raise the brightness to about 100-120
use the adjustment tools:
Burn(darken) the sky and dodge(brighten) the rest
use a soft large brush and ~exposure -1.8 for burning and +1.0 for dodging

Use noise reduction, sharpening and a slight vignette for a finishing touch.

What I got was this:

How to choose a camera

Long time no post, and that is because I'm in Chennai, about 500 miles away from home and I don't have my DSLR with me. So I'll try and post on topics which do not require it while I'm here.

Many people ask me which camera should they buy, so I thought of writing an article which could help them make informed decisions on this matter without having to consult me :)

The first thing to see is your budget. How much are you willing to spend? There will always be a better more expensive camera, so you need to draw the line on the price before doing anything else.

The next question to ask is, what will you be shooting most of the while? If you do most of your shooting in daytime and you are on a limited budget, a megazoom camera may be more appropriate than a DSLR, as you will need to spend money on lenses for the latter.
A DSLR will however give you full control over practically everything, besides giving you pixel level sharpness and low noise at high ISO(compared to a compact digicam), besides the flexibility of being able to use various lenses.

For DSLRs:
Check the make. Prefer Canon or Nikon to Sony. I'm not anti Sony or anything, but Canon and Nikon have a much better variety of lenses and their noise profiles are also better than Sony as of date.

Check for lenses and other accessories that you would buy over time and see how affordable they are to you. Check the burst rate of the camera in case you like shooting sports. Try and get the maximum viewfinder coverage and magnification that you can. Check a couple of reviews on www.dpreview.com or www.dcresource.com Finally, go to a shop and see what feels best in your hands.

For Non-DSLRs:
Decide whether you want a megazoom or a good quality compact or a normal digicam. Try and get one with Manual mode, as you would like to have control over your images. Make sure you have manual white balance on the camera. See if the camera if capable of saving RAW files. Forget megapixels, anything above 3 is good, as long as you dont have to print billboard sized images! Try to get as large a sensor as possible. Usually CCD sizes are 1/2.5". Bigger than that is good. 1/1.8" is used in a few good cameras.

Since you have only one lens on this camera, you want to make sure its the best you are getting. Besides Zoom range, you want the lens to be fast, as in have a large maximum aperture. The max aperture range will be quoted like f/2.8-f/5.6
This means that the max aperture when zoomed out completely is f/2.8 and when zoomed in completely is f/5.6. you want these numbers to be as small as possible.

Recommendations:
As of now
Entry level DSLR: Nikon D3100
Megazoom: Panasonic FZ 35
Good semi-pro Compact: Canon S95 or the latest G series