Was reminded about this photo when someone faved it on my flickr stream today. This was taken in Odaiba.
When I originally posted this a year ago, I was frustrated at not being able to “bring out” the photo the way I had seen it. It was all dark because the camera exposed for the highlights in the clouds. Fortunately, I captured this in RAW format and now that I have additional tricks up my sleeves, the image is closer how to I wanted it to look. I might revisit it again sometime, as I just spent no more than one or two minutes tweaking this one (sleepy). I’m quite pleased with the results, though:
Coincidentally, I just listened to Martin Bailey’s interview with Jon Sheer. The subject matter is on HDR and how it allows him to fully convey the depth and feeling of his subject matter.
The photo above is not HDR, but it’s the same point. I kind of like to think of is as tweaking the image because the medium we are using – 8-bit JPGs and low dynamic range cameras and displays – are insufficient to convey what we really want to.
The limitation is artificial. If the film had been invented out of some material that could record a large large range (or similarly, if we had sensors that could do the same, and corresponding screens that could display them), HDR wouldn’t be a big deal.
(A quick google reveals some hits for HDR displays already.)
BTW, John Sheer has a collection of these really fantastic HDR photos. For folks in Japan, he has an ongoing exhibition (details).