In-camera HDR

[tomba]

I find that HDR in Sony RX-100 works quite well. It works hand-held, without a tripod. Pictures look natural. Example:

Regular:

DSC10359-small.jpeg

HDR:

DSC10360-small.jpeg

Click to enlarge.

See how details in the shadows become more visible, and how the rock overexposed to white recovered its golden sunshine color.

In-camera HDR saves a lot of time compared to combining bracketed exposure photos in Hugin, and results are better.

There are six HDR levels. Up to about level 4 most photos look natural, but it depends on the scene. There is also auto HDR level, but it picks too strong HDR for my taste.

HDR is useful for high contrast scenes, with sunny and shady areas. They are common when the sun is low.

One downside of HDR is that shapes visible due to shadows appear flatter, because shadows become less deep. See the foreground rock in the above photos.

Of course, HDR is not suitable to moving objects (branches in the wind, for example), except it seems OK for moving water.

Earlier I tried HDR in Canon PowerShot S100. It didn't work without a tripod, and I wasn't impressed with the results. But I didn't try it much.

[maverick]

HDR was a fun look when first introduced, and in certain circumstances it has its
usefulness, though personally I prefer using masks or the "bend if" sliders, still
have Photomatix but haven't used it in quite a while, and would still would much
rather prefer using a dedicated piece of software then an in-camera one any day.

The progress in today's cameras now allows one to capture a greater dynamic
range than even a few years back. Advancements in Lightrooms development
panel also allows a photographer to be able to extract much more detail from
a photo's shadows or highlights than the previous versions, which makes using
HDR unnecessary in most case unless one is looking for particular look. IMO

[tomba]

Serious photographers may shoot from a tripod in RAW format and then postprocess the photos. Others may prefer to save time and weight, and get photos right from the camera, ready to view. I take hundreds of photos per day in Sierra and keep almost all of them.

RX-100 also has a way to pull shadows with Dynamic Range Optimization (DRO). I leave it on AUTO most of the time. Use HDR when DRO is not enough. HDR in RX-100 usually looks natural, without the typical HDR look. RX-100 saves regular photo in addition to HDR. At home I compare them and keep only one.

Another example, with stronger HDR. I tried to get both the sky colors and the slabs. Click to enlarge.

Regular:

DSC08324-small.jpeg

HDR:

DSC08325-small.jpeg

I assume that postprocessing is time consuming, and to pull shadows effectively a RAW format is required. Please correct me if I am wrong.

[maverick]

Tomba wrote:
I assume that postprocessing is time consuming, and to pull shadows effectively a
RAW format is required. Please correct me if I am wrong.

Some more than others. Yes, RAW has many advantages, and should be used whenever
taking any photograph that has meaning, sentimental or business.
The difference between JPEG and RAW are well explained here: http://ronbigelow.com/articles/raw/raw.htm" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;