High-Dynamic Range (HDR) Imaging

As already discussed, your eye can perceive a much greater dynamic range than your camera can. In other words, your eye can register far more tones from dark to light. If you find yourself in a scene with a very extreme dynamic range, you have a few options. First, you can elect to capture just one part of the scene—either light or dark—and let the other part of the scene plunge into shadow or blow out to complete white. Depending on the nature of the shot and your composition, this can end up looking like a very stylized abstraction, since your eye doesn’t normally perceive bright or dark areas this way.

If you’re going for more realism, you can shoot two images—one exposed to capture the lighter parts of the image, and the other exposed to capture the darker parts. You can then composite these two images using compositing software. This type of compositing can vary in difficulty depending on the content of your scene. Fine details such as leaves or complex transparent textures can be extremely difficult and time-consuming to composite. In some cases, getting a good composite might be impossible.