HTC One X, image unedited, resized at Imgur

New Year celebration at The Curve




Sepang Gold Coast Beach



Singing teacher's bday


My engine after overhaul, about to masuk car


Photos taken with HTC One X, out of camera unedited. Beach photos taken with camera in HDR mode so does that count as an edit?

This post has been edited by Nightstalker1993: Jan 11 2013, 03:52 AM

The 2 photos at the beach is taken using the phone's built-in HDR feature, everything is untouched. And the HOX's HDR is a real HDR as in it combines 2 or 3 images into 1 to capture the full dynamic range. If taken using normal auto mode the image would either have overexposed skies or underexposed beach sand.

Heres an example of an image captured in normal Auto mode.



noticed how the trees are underexposed while the skies are overexposed? That's where HDR comes in. Most people use Exposure bracketing on their DSLRs usually within EV+-1 to do a HDR but the HOX comes built-in with the feature. Not too sure how does the iPhone's HDR work though(just googled, the iPhone 4s' HDR mode works similarly but not too sure about it's effectiveness as i did not compare side to side) but the Samsung S3's HDR is definitely nowhere near the HOX as i tried comparing it with my friend's.



This is another example of the effectiveness of the HDR mode. Without the HDR mode, the subjects would be severely underexposed and the only clear thing you would see is the sky but the HOX managed to capture the image with a bracket of +-1.3EV according to the EXIF data.

This post has been edited by Nightstalker1993: Jan 11 2013, 05:14 AM

No probs, just sharing my knowledge

But technically it's actually an edit as it combines multiple photos into 1 eventhough it's all done by software. I've googled around results for images taken with the iPhone's HDR mode and the difference between HDR and non-HDR is minimal on the iphone while on the HOX it's quite huge. Will show another sample image below.

No probs, just make sure if you're experimenting with a camera and a HDR software like Photoshop or Photomattix, you don't overdo it. General rule of thumb, if your photo looks unnatural with weird auras around objects, you're probably overdoing it

Another tip for HDR is make sure your subjects are stationary, in the photo below you can see what happens if you have a moving subject as the camera snaps multiple images and combines them together, you get a ghosting effect

Heres a comparison without and with HDR mode and notice the ghosting effect on the HDR pic due to subject's movements. Basically HDR reduces the exposure of the overexposed part and increases the exposure of the underexposed part, making the image very balanced in term of exposure. You can google more about HDR if you're interested in the subject.




The reason why phone cameras capture situations like these badly in normal mode is due to it's tiny sensor. Generally the larger the sensor, the wider it's dynamic range so HDR is used to compensate for the lack of the sensor's dynamic range

This post has been edited by Nightstalker1993: Jan 11 2013, 05:19 PM

yeap usually used for landscape, but turns out it's good for taking beach portraits as well

This post has been edited by Nightstalker1993: Jan 11 2013, 06:09 PM