iPhone HDR - Before & After Photos

I am actually surprised how well this works with in-phone, with fully-automated processing. I do a fair amount of HDR work with a Canon 7D, and the process is anything but simple. The results can be outstanding, but there is a lot of work in getting to the end product. The iPhone is using fairly conservative settings that avoid the surreal effects that HDR can produce if you are not careful.

Of course, it probably helps that the phone is able to make intelligent exposure decisions by evaluative metering. It can automatically pick the 3 best exposures. Most cameras do not have such automated capabilities. At best, you can take bracketed shots, but each shot is hard-coded to your chosen EV offset. I would imagine in-camera HDR will be the next must-have feature in point-and-shoots, which, given time, will no doubt find its way into professional models.

As far as the pro models go, I would love to have a more automated method of taking a series of raw shots at HDR-optimal EV offsets.

If your photos are dull or washed out, you're doing it wrong. Or, to be more accurate, you're doing it right, but need to do a little more.

This high dynamic range mode compresses more highlights and shadows into the limited brightness values of a JPEG.

Your job is to widen the contrast back out selectively, using the saved details to re-process the image with the exposure and contrasts you want:

http://michael.terretta.com/if-your-iphone-4-hdr-photos-are-...

I think the algorithm could try harder (or the photographer could possibly point to the shadows to expose them better).

The photos show a good job of underexposing to prevent blown-out highlights, but it could do better overexposing to bring out shadow detail.