High Dynamic Range (HDR) Imaging
High Dynamic Range photography is a recent phenomenon brought about by the digital age of photgraphy and due mainly to the inability of digital sensors to record a broad range of tones. Before digital cameras appeared, SLR film cameras were used by professionals. Film had a greater ability than the current crop of digital sensors to record broad ranges of tones within a single image. This means that an image that contains very bright highlights (such as a bright sky) and dark shadows that is recorded by the sensor on a digital camera, will lose a lot of information at the extremes. Areas of extreme highlights will appear completely white or "blown out" while some areas of shadow will be completely dark.
Virtual Tours that include a 360 degree view of a particular scene are especially susceptible to this phenomenon, and therefore HDR imaging can be a good way of overcoming such problems. A series of images are taken at different exposure levels and these are then merged together using computer software. The end result is an image that contains a "High Dynamic Range" of tones. Click on the images below to compare the difference between an HDR virtual tour and a non-HDR virtual tour.
Non HDR Imaging
HDR Imaging
