I recently purchased an app for my Galaxy Nexus phone called HDR Camera+ and it takes some really great photos, especially considering it's a 5mp phone camera. It basically takes several pictures in succession using various filters and flash, then combines them all into a single photo on the fly. It balances the lighting and does a pretty awesome job of it. Where it struggles is when things are moving.
So it got me wondering if any photographers here use HDR and if they have any tips. I realize mine is just a simple app, but it does have a lot of settings. I was going to post this in Daryl's latest Seychelles post, but I didn't want to hijack it. 🙂
my iphone has a built in "hdr" mode, but I turned it off since my hands are kinda shakey.. all the pics looked terrible and I don't have a mini tripod. I never knew what it was doing, but that makes sense now.
This app apparently deals with shakiness, according to the docs. Plus it may help to have a built-in image stabilizer, which I do. Hoping to get some good sample shots today.
Can you get a good printable image of a courthouse document
with your iphone?
Don't know about the phone camera, but I've used a regular small digital camera with some success. There are two problems with lighting, that I doubt the phone camera can do much about.
First, in normal office light the shutter speed is so low that it is hard to hold still without a tripod to avoid blurring the image. So you have best success in places they don't mind you using a flash.
The other problem is glare. Even normal paper may give some glare from the flash if you shoot straight on. In the local Recorder's office a lot of documents are copies bound into the books and are on some fairly glossy copy paper, and other records laminated in plastic to hold together fragile papers. The fluorescent lights or a flash make it hard to get a glare-free picture.
I have...or had rather and HDR app on my iPhone before it bit it but I didn't see results that were as good as results in the other world...I mean manually with an SLR and manually changing exposures. I don't shoot HDR but you have to work it to get good results from what I see. The night time photos from Europe are surprisingly and practically right out of the camera raw... A 1 to 2 second exposure on a firm unmovable surface and the light from neon, traffic, and sky does all the work ... a crop is about it, easy shots...the work is finding a composition...
I have used Photomatrix software for HDR images with my SLR. HDR is a good tool for high contrast subjects. You either need to take a series of bracketed exposure images or post process a RAW image in something like Adobe Camera RAW into a series of bracketed exposure images. Then using the HDR software merge and adjust the images into the final image. I have found the first method seems to work best for stationary subjects while the second works best for moving subjects. HDR is just another tool, like Daryl said the work is in finding the composition.
