Here is a recent HDR (High Dynamic Range) time lapse from our edit bay. To date, digital cameras still have problems simultaneously resolving details in bright and dark areas, and one solution for photography is to bracket the exposure of a composition and then merge the images with various software. It is not currently feasible to do this with video, but since time lapses are video created from stills, we can create HDR video.

To the left you can see examples of the three bracketed exposures, rendered into their own time lapses. To the right is the digitally merged version. The result is a time lapse with details in the dark areas (sagebrush) and details in the highlights (snow,clouds).

We could have made the entire piece lighter overall, but we chose simply to subtly bring out the details in the sagebrush and cottonwoods, while capping the IRE peaks.

This process is very time consuming, but the results are well worth it.

We’ll post more here later, so check back.