9 Best HDR photography tips to enhance your portfolio
Updated on January 2, 2023 in Photography by Nishant Shrimali
HDR photography is about enhancing the overall image with contrast, shadows, and highlights. Not only it makes some of the normal photos go eye-pop but is fairly popular among the audience across the niches.
If you are a photographer with a portfolio (which you must be), we would suggest you create a section for your HDR photos. Moreover, here are the 9 Best HDR Photography Tips To Enhance Your Portfolio.
But just before that, let us see how HDR actually works.
How HDR Works?
High dynamic range photography or as we usually call it, HDR photography is a photography technique where the dynamics, i.e. the exposure, ranging from light to dark and captures multiple shots to combine them together in order to get the best results.
Let us slow down here and see what this means. When you choose HDR photo settings, you are asking your camera to take multiple shots of the subject in a frame in different exposure settings (Low exposure, Medium exposure, and High exposure).
At this point, you ask the camera to automatically combine them and give the end result or you can manually edit and combine all the images in a photo editing software in Photoshop.
The number of shots depends on the brackets you choose, which varies from three, five, seven, or nine. The more number brackets you choose the more variations of exposure you will get.
9 Best HDR Photography Tips To Enhance Your Portfolio
1. Use Tripod
In order to create an appealing photography portfolio, your HDR photography needs to be at its peak. And unplanned distortion is the last thing you would like in your images.
Moreover, to get the best result, you need to ensure that the camera is stable. The camera or you are looking forward to merging different images. The slightest of moments can lead to a blurry and ghostly image.
Well, most of the editing software might be able to fix the issue but lack of perfection is clearly noticeable. Hence, we highly recommend you use a tripod for HDR photos.
2. Set the Camera Level
A tilted image is not a good image for a photography portfolio in most cases. Especially, if you are into HDR photos, you would rarely notice any tilt. So make sure that your camera levels are correct.
While this too can be easily fixed in post-production, this also means cropping around the edges, which in some cases act as natural framing. Anyway, why rely on the second chance, when you can do things right in the first place.
3. Use AEB
AEB stands for Auto Exposure Bracketing. This isn’t a must-have setting that can vary your camera choices, but if you do, it could make your HDR photography efforts go really low.
Once the camera is in the AEB setting, it will capture the subject in different exposures without taking a much longer time. This will ensure stability as well as control over each image in different exposure settings.
4. Use Low ISO settings
Higher ISO would lead to grainy and noisy images. Unless and until you were going for that particular shoot, low ISO would suit you perfectly. It will give a clean and crisp image, and along with the right use of HDR, your photography portfolio would look amazing.
5. Shoot in Continuous Mode
The simple, easy-to-use, and multi-functional continuous photography mode allow you to capture an image continuously until the number of shoots you choose is completed. When used for HDR photography, you can get multiple HDR photos.
This gives an option to choose out of many and also helps you to make sure that you are backed up with a good shot if one has distortion or unwanted element in it.
6. Shoot in Aperture Priority Mode
If you are using Nikon you would find the setting by the name Aperture Priority, and if you are using Canon, you could find it by the name AV mode. This mode allows you to have a fixed aperture regardless of other factors.
It comes really handy in HDR photography because while capturing an image in different exposures, the camera tends to vary the aperture. AV mode allows you to have a fixed aperture, with the right blur, where the focus stays constant, even in different exposure settings.
Overall giving you a perfect picture for your photography portfolio.
7. Set up Focusing
Just like Aperture, the focus is another varying property of the HDR camera settings. Moreover, a slight shift in aperture might not be noticeable, change in focus surely does.
Solution? Locking AE/AF in your camera setting could resolve the issue as easily as a breeze. It will lock the focus and make sure that the subject you want in focus stays in focus.
8. Shoot in RAW
RAW is a file format that you can save your image in. This comes particularly very handy for professional photographers who are looking to get their images professionally edited.
The RAW format saves every detail and ensures better image editing scope. You may also note that doing the HDR photography in RAW format will require a lot of storage.
Even saving an image would take longer than usual. Hence we highly recommend you using class 6 or class 10 SD cards. Moreover, if possible carry at least two cards to ensure you don’t run out of storage.
9. Know when to use HDR
HDR photography is surely one of the best photography styles out there, but to ensure that your photography portfolio is on point, you need to know when is the right time to use HDR photography for your advantage.
HDR Photography works best with texture and details. Hence the best time to use HDR is when you are capturing photos of landscape, architecture, and other man-made structures.
Why HDR for Product Photography?
As we have discussed above HDR photography helps you capture the texture and details of the subject. This comes very handily when capturing a product as it helps the customer to judge a product very easily and observe the details in a sight.
But in order to make sure that you don’t overly empathize on your HDR you shall capture the image in RAW, and send it into PixelPhant.
PixelPhant is a product image editing service helping eCommerce around the world by providing the best eCommerce product images.
Your HDR images will be edited by professionals to in the right balance of dynamic range and natural image to make the image completely flawless.
Get your product image editing trial by clicking on the “Get Started” button below.
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