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HDR

HDR: iPhone a great companion for DSRL shooters

by Veit on 06/18/2009

HDR companion DSLR shooter @ iphonephotovideo.com iphone photo video iPod Touch

AEB settings in EVcalc

Contrary to the iPhone being a lousy HDR camera platform, the iPhone is a good companion when you head out with your DSLR to capture HDR images. Why?

My typical setup for an HDR shot in the field looks like this:

  • Setup the DSRL on a tripod
  • Use the spotmeter in my Canon 5D to meter the lightest and darkest parts of the scene
  • Sit down and do the math how many shots it takes, what to set the Auto Exposure Bracket (AEB) settings to and how many AEB shots it will take.

The calculation can become quite challenging based on the limitations of your camera equipment. My Canon 5D only allows for 3 shot AEB with a maximum bracketing distance of 1 EV between each shot. If you need to bracket 7 EVs, you need 3 AEB shots with what settings for each shot? I guess you get the gist of the problem.

Two iPhone applications can help you with the math. My favorite is EVcalc – simply set the desired Aperture, the initial speed and the bracketing distance, then let it calculate the corresponding brackets. It’s quite simple and fast. The only improvement I would have wished for is to be able to pick the max EV and AEB settings for my camera from a picklist. But since I know these anyway, it was not too much of a problem. And the price is right: It’s free.

The other application is HDR Helper. It pretty much does the same as EVcalc, with one added feature: You can also change your ISO sensitivity in your HDR setup. This might be important for some photographers, especially when you shoot handheld, but I don’t need it, thus my preference for EVcalc. But if you want ISO support in your HDR calculations, $1.99 is a good price for a very capable iPhone HDR companion app.

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HDR on the iPhone? Maybe in a few years.

by Veit on 06/17/2009

HDR (High Dynamic Range Imaging) is one of the hot topics for professional and amateur photographers. Naturally, the question arose: Can you do HDR photography on the iPhone?

In short, HDR is a process where you combine in software multiple exposures of the same subject that were all taken at different exposure levels. The combined images provide you with a higher dynamic luminance range than a single image would do, thus allowing you to better showcase details in the photograph as long as you do not exaggerate such details. See Wikipedia for a full description.

The iPhone is not conducive to HDR photography. Even if you brace your iPhone so you could photograph the exact same subject multiple times, the iPhone does not allow you to set the exposure of each images, which is critical to the HDR process. And while I can imagine the iPhone to be able to combine multiple images (align and process), I cannot see it to perform tone-mapping well, since that process requires too much processing power, at least for the current generation of iPhones.

HDR photography HDR Camera @ iphonephotoshow.com iphone photo iPod Touch

HDR Camera app gives the image an exaggerated look

So when I searched iTunes for HDR apps recently, I was surprised to find a few. Upon further checking, these applications basically consist of filters that make an iPhone image look like it was processed as an HDR image. Unfortunately, they highlight the exaggerated HDR look, thus making the images look fake and over-processed. But if you are into that look, you might check out these apps:

HDR Camera: $2.99 in iTunes
PhotoPict: $1.99 in iTunes

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