50 Incredible Examples of HDR Photography

by Bill Jones

HDR Photography, you either love it or hate it. I have read comments reflecting both sentiments and honestly I can understand both sides. A lot of HDR photography I have found really seems blown-out and way way to saturated and for the most part just plain ugly. This flavor of HDR photos I can do without. Then there is the well executed HDR image. Here we find beautiful dreamlike colors and tones, almost a magical quality to it.

Below I have examples of just that type of HDR photo. Enjoy.

David Kendal

HDR Photography

Kaj Bjurman

HDR Photography

Kris Kros

HDR Photography

Erroba

HDR Photography

vedd

HDR Photography

Xindaan

HDR Photography

Peter Unterweger

HDR Photography

MorBCN

HDR Photography

Omar Junior

HDR Photography

Tony Eckersley

HDR Photography

Philipp Klinger

HDR Photography

Kane Gledhil

HDR Photography

Joep Roosen

HDR Photography

Ragstatic

HDR Photography

Khaled A.K

HDR Photography

Brian Matiash

HDR Photography

tappit_01

HDR Photography

petervanallen

HDR Photography

Altus

HDR Photography

(Erik)

HDR Photography

Daniel Cheong

HDR Photography

John Mueller

HDR Photography

uncommon

HDR Photography

caese

HDR Photography

Salva del Saz

HDR Photography

Pablo Lèautaud

HDR Photography

CarbonSilver (gbenz)

HDR Photography

Surrealize

HDR Photography

rednaxela_west

HDR Photography

big pixel pusher

HDR Photography

Whats your opinion on HDR Photography?

52 Dazzling Examples of Sunset Photography

60 Inspiring Examples of Black and White Photography

35 Extraordinarily Clever Examples of Toy Photography

40 Astounding Examples of Abstract Photography

35 Awesome Examples of Night Photography

28 Comments

Kim Beaty
September 23rd
I love HDR – Beautiful images, enhanced, what’s wrong with that? I love the lights and darks, and the deep texture of the images.
Bill Jones
September 23rd
Agreed, however I have seen some pretty bad attempts at it.
@todayinart
September 23rd
I am so bad at this, but trying to get better. Nice shots!
Bill Jones
September 23rd
@todayinart
Keep trying. In the future I will have a tutorial explaining how to produce nice HDR images. There is hope!
@carmarthenshire
September 24th
Always inspired, always learning more.

Some of my attempts:- http://www.fingerprintphotography.co.uk/wales/wales.htm

:o)
Kelly
September 24th
Amazing pictures! Everything looks like so real and you feel like you can touch! *-*
Roger
September 24th
Yea, It’s all about being subtle with it. Here’s a HDR tilt shift photo I did. Two gimmicks in one!

http://www.rogerblanton.com/downloads/tiltshiftpool.jpg
kevin
September 24th
Wow, just awesome!
Martin
September 25th
Boaahhh – absolut fantastic. Totally blown away. Thanks for sharing.
Martin
Dean Birinyi
September 25th
Wonderful images.

Everyone of them is stunning and beautiful, however I also noticed that all but a very few have that HDR look, where things are just a little bit unreal, but maybe it’s just me and my inner aesthetic hasn’t quite adapted to the new capabilities the technique provides.

Regardless these images are all excellent.
Aaron
September 28th
I am baffled at how you get hdr action shots. Anyone care to enlighten me?
Bill Jones
September 28th
@ Aaron
Visit this flickr group. You will find your answers there. Basically you will have to work from one RAW image and create several bracketed exposures from it to produce your HDR image.
Rich Uchytil
October 6th
Great photos, but you can’t do proper a HDR set without including Trey Ratcliff from http://www.StuckinCustoms.com. His stuff is fantastic!!
FOlmeda
October 15th
These are really brilliant!!!!!! An inspiration! I’ve been taking some too as this in Inverness http://www.flickr.com/photos/kobayeshi/3855999361/ or this in Portmahomack http://www.flickr.com/photos/kobayeshi/3893137431/

Bye!
Lonnie
November 16th
I really don’t like HDR. Too many people just over do it. Looks fake to me most of the time. If you are going to try it, don’t go over +/- 0.3 stop either way.
Tazran Tanmizi
December 6th
to me some it looks like bad illustration. just looks too artificial, colors saturation are too high. I think some are just over done.
I think is good technique just got to do tastefully. judgment is as important as technique.
Good luck
Gautam
December 9th
Where’s Trey Ratcliff (http://www.StuckinCustoms.com)?
Morkel Erasmus
December 9th
stunning examples!! ’tis true, most either love or hate it. I am of the funny kind that loves the natural-looking ones as well as those that push the boundaries some.

I agree – you’ll have to include Trey Ratcliffe from Stuckincustoms.

have a look at my “Southern Africa in HDR” blog…
just click on my name…:)
The Baldchemist
December 29th
You know, I like some of the pictures here and thank you. But, I’m not sure that they are “high dynamic range”. HDR requires several exposures. Some of these have movement that would not make for HDR.

It’s great that techniques are now availible to all (at a cost) but attempt to capture tha picture i the camera without relying on what “photoshop” can do.

Some pretty ordinary compositions here that have been worked for an unreal result.

Composition and use of light wins everytime.
Have a great new year.
Ricardo
February 18th
I Hate HDR,It´s a fake photography
Craig
February 25th
I don’t find many of these “incredible” at all. In fact many would be poor examples, HDR is about subtlety and in fact many are not HDR put ‘shopped HDR with single shots. “repainted” pictures if you will with an amazing amount of over sharpness.
I am a fan of HDR but much of what you have posted here is NOT HDR, at least let us start with getting it right and not calling super saturation, clarity blown out pictures HDR.
Michael Harris
February 25th
For me hdr is a tool – a means to an end. It is a tool available to use in creating an image, it’s not the point of the image.
Jessica
March 9th
I think you missed someone in this list of great HDR photos:

http://kenkaminesky.com/
Joe
April 7th
NewHDR approach:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/7604565@N06/
Top Wordpress Themesw
April 27th
Wow these are simply amazing! I see some people do not “believe” in HDR photography, but ultimately it looks pretty good. I also would think that people that do HDR photography do not just do that.
Bruno Depi
May 9th
Nice photos, but they are not the “classic HDR”, they are like the Dave Hill effect kinda of photos, manipulating to get a more dramatic light effect.HDR means that u can have more points of light putting 2 or more photos togheter, trying to reproduce the human eye sensibility, because the eye to light is more accurate than a camera.
But nice job anyways!
Kevin Chow
May 10th
Very nice photos! It’s hard to believe some of those are real because they look CG. I never actually taken HDR photos before, but it’s interesting what it can do.

I recently did an episode of a podcast on photography. The photos used in it look amazing too. If interested, you may check it out at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7_yHkuA9DBw
Alex
August 7th
When done properly HDR looks good but the above are overcooked they don’t like real photos more like paintings too saturated. do what we do go out and wait for the correct conditions to take great photos, enjoy the outdoors instead of rushing home stuck in from of your PC processing your photos.