if you want 9 stops of dynamic range, the right way is to shoot film and scan it to edit in photoshop, not HDR (digital only sees 5 stops of dynamic range, human eyes see ~12 stops)

What's film? ;)

<--- never shot with film... ever. yay for digital!

I think it's like a Polaroid. Never heard of it.:roflpuke2:

Oh haha... nice. I started with film but yes... thank god for digital!

I had film on my camera once... but I wiped it off.

Not to be pedantic, but to be pedantic :)

Varying shutter speed isn't relevant unless in full manual mode, and even then is incomplete. What you need to vary is exposure, either by using exposure compensation or bracketing, or by using full manual, in which case you can vary shutter or aperture, though aperture variation may create depthnof field artifacts.

Also, digital has more dynamic range than film, but less latitude - like an excellent slide film, especially when shooting RAW, which has a coulee of extra stops of range. It is possible to create an HDR with a single raw shot.

Finally, a true HDR can't be represented in a JPEG file which has a fixed range based on format, or displayed on a normal (non-radiology) computer monitor, which also is restricted in dynamic range. The best you can do is convert the HDR back down to normal 8-bit dynamic range using a custom tone curve. That said, properly done such an image can feel more like what you saw in real life.

^^ good explanation, but I'm pretty sure that's gonna confuse the OP even more.

Haha so true..

AWESOME. Where did you get that graphic? I want it for my office!

This graph is brilliant. I want to show it to some folks who think they are pros the second they bought their first dslr....might give them some perspective and show them that its not the camera that makes fantastic photos...

My iPhone 4 has built-in HDR now! :D

someone posted it on a photography forum that i'm on, i seriously fell out of my chair laughing because it is sooooo true :bowrofl:

i'm currently in the "damnit, i suck" section of that graph, mixed with a little bit of gear-faggotry as we were talking about the past few days lol

Keep at it. I've been shooting for 40 years, seriously for over 35 (got my first camera at 10). Still learning and getting better every day.

Shooting in RAW makes it very easy to get different exposure levels from a single image.