Moving at the Speed of Creativity by Wesley Fryer

Mammoth Hot Springs in Yellowstone: Perfect for HDR iPhoneography

If you have an iPhone, you need the $2 Pro HDR app. HDR photography (High dynamic range imaging) combines a dark exposure and a light exposure of the same scene to create an picture with far more color depth than a “regular” digital image. Even though my iPhone4 has a built-in camera HDR feature, without a special app I can’t manually adjust brightness, contrast, and other settings which I find essential to take high quality iPhone HDR images.

Today I had an opportunity to visit Mammoth Hot Springs in Yellowstone National Park, and thanks to Pro HDR I was able to take the following images. Anytime a photographic scene has extremely bright elements along with dark elements, it can be well suited for HDR photography. These is particularly true of many landscape scenes. There’s no way I could have captured images in Yellowstone with this much color depth without an HDR photography app.

Mammoth Hot Springs in Yellowstone National Park

Mammoth Hot Springs in Yellowstone National Park: Minerva Terrace

Mammoth Hot Springs in Yellowstone National Park

Mammoth Hot Springs in Yellowstone National Park

Mammoth Hot Springs in Yellowstone National Park

The main reason an HDR image might not work well in a scene with bright and dark elements is if there significant movement in the frame. In those cases, you may be better off sticking with a ‘standard’ digital image.

Rachel at Mammoth Hot Springs in Yellowstone National Park

Hat tip to Dean Shareski who first alerted me to the Pro HDR app!

If you’d like to learn more about iPhoneography, check out my iPhonography resources page, which also includes an hour long videoconference workshop from December 2011 on iPhoneography.

All my photos from this week’s adventures in Montana and Wyoming including the Discovery Educators Network Summer Institute in Bozeman are available in this Flickr collection.

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2 responses to “Mammoth Hot Springs in Yellowstone: Perfect for HDR iPhoneography”

  1. Allanah King ? ADE Avatar

    Ah- memories of our tour of Whakarewarewa hot pools in New Zealand- how many years ago?????

  2. Wesley Fryer Avatar

    3 years – it was February of 2009! Definitely too long ago, I need to make another trip to NZ and bring my family this time 🙂