BebuLamar

HDR technique has been around for quite sometimes but it requires you to take more than one shots. Doing so one can only shoot static subject and need tripod (possible without tripod but not as good). I am thinking that nowaday camera can boost ISO to very high level without exessive level of noise. Why don't they make the camera that take just one shot. Hold the capture in the sensor and do several readouts at different ISO level?

f8lee Loc: New Mexico

I'm not sure such a thing is technically possible. Raising ISO essentially means that the sensitivity of the photo sites will be increased, or amplified so each one "counts" what it might miss at a lower sensitivity. So, at a low setting, say a photo site can pick up 1000 photons and register a reading, whereas at a very high ISO it can measure just 10 photons hitting it. When the exposure is made, the photo site is, by definition, at a single sensitivity setting - so if it "misses" the few photons that would require a much higher ISO there would be no way to retrieve that information.

rwilson1942 Loc: Houston, TX

This technique is done in HDR software by making two (or more) copies of the original photo and changing the exposure +/- of the copies.
That might be possible in camera but I doubt that any manufacturer would implement it.

Cdouthitt Loc: Traverse City, MI

Um...if this were true, then how did I shoot this?
Handheld, moving subject, HDR, stitched pano...check. Must be my mad skills :-)

http://www.uglyhedgehog.com/t-383286-1.html

bull drink water Loc: pontiac mi.

i'll stick with multi shots. I've also found that sony bridge cameras do a nice job.

f8lee Loc: New Mexico

Nice image, Clint - but it seems to bolster my point in response to the OP's question - you needed multiple captures of each segment (in your pano)

rbfanman

I'm sure it would be possible to do...if there were a market for it. How many extra hundreds, or thousands, of dollars are YOU willing to pay for a camera that can do that, over the price of the same camera without that function?

Now you know why it is not yet being done. Give it a few years, or decades, for prices of the needed tech to drop, or the willingness of camera buyers to pay extra for the feature, and then watch it happen.

rook2c4 Loc: Philadelphia, PA USA

The closest thing may be ADR (such as Nikon's D-Lighting), which isn't really HDR, but more like in-camera tone mapping applied to a single image.

Gene51 Loc: Yonkers, NY, now in LSD (LowerSlowerDelaware)

Check out ISO invariance - basically there are newer (and some not so new) where the sensor contributes very little noise at base ISO. Ok, so you are thinking "big deal." Well it is a big deal. If you can underexpose your image by as much as 4 or 5 stops, and not end up with shadow detail in the mud, then you'd probably think it is a big deal. That would mean that you could set your camera to ISO 100, but use aperture and shutter speeds as if you were using ISO 1600 or 3200.

At ISO 100 (or whatever your camera has as base ISO), you could expose for those highlights regardless of the fact that the shadows will appear to be hopelessly dark, then process the image to reveal them without penalty.

The two images below were derived from a single raw file. They were taken with a D800 - but because I was not aware of ISO invariance at the time, at ISO 200, so there was a little noise. First one has no adjustments applied, the second one has been adjusted. I just wish I had known and would have shot it at ISO100.

I did find that while in the past I might have shot this (and many other images) with HDR - I rarely resort to this anymore with the D800. I now shoot base ISO and underexpose when necessary, in order to get the most dynamic range available, and not have to resort to single/multiple shot HDR.

(Download)


(Download)

pecohen Loc: Central Maine

Another way to say the same thing is to suggest shooting in RAW mode. Then your HDR processing software could adjust the exposure to two or three different levels and combine those images using HDR. So far as I know, all software that is capable of HDR processing will support this operation directly, but there could be an exception. Even then, you would only have to create multiple images with different exposure levels and then use the HDR software for the HDR merge.

Mike Hardisty Loc: North Wales

I had this feature in my Pentax K-30. Nowadays I shoot Olympus and I have to HDR settings where the camera takes 3 photographs and combines them in camera to give a JPEG output. It gives not bad results but I never use it though as I much prefer creating my HDR's from RAW files where I have more control of the final output

Mike Hardisty Loc: North Wales

That should be two HDR settings

jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

Don't some cameras have an HDR setting? You set the control, press the button, and the camera makes the HDR. As I implied, this is a question, not an answer.

MontanaTrace

My recently purchased Sony A6000 has in-camera HDR and DRO. Check out the DRO. Dynamic Range Optimum. One shot, designed to replicate the advantages of handling extremes, like HDR.

sb Loc: Florida's East Coast

I have wondered the same thing - why does in-camera HDR require three different shutter-clicks? Why can't it access one image from the sensor with the automatically metered ISO setting, then access two more images instantly using two different ISO settings - one or two stops up and one or two stops down? Seems reasonable.