alt Hacker NewsIt seems like a mistake to lump HDR capture, HDR formats and HDR display together, these are very different things. The claim that Ansel Adams used HDR is super likely to cause confusion, and isn’t particularly accurate.
We’ve had HDR formats and HDR capture and edit workflows since long before HDR displays. The big benefit of HDR capture & formats is that your “negative” doesn’t clip super bright colors and doesn’t lose color resolution in super dark color. As a photographer, with HDR you can re-expose the image when you display/print it, where previously that wasn’t possible. Previously when you took a photo, if you over-exposed it or under-exposed it, you were stuck with what you got. Capturing HDR gives the photographer one degree of extra freedom, allowing them to adjust exposure after the fact. Ansel Adams wasn’t using HDR in the same sense we’re talking about, he was just really good at capturing the right exposure for his medium without needing to adjust it later. There is a very valid argument to be made for doing the work up-front to capture what you’re after, but ignoring that for a moment, it is simply not possible to re-expose Adams’ negatives to reveal color detail he didn’t capture. That’s why he’s not using HDR, and why saying he is will only further muddy the water.
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Adams adjusted heavily with dodging and burning, even working to invent a new chemical process to provide more control when developing. He was great at determining exposure for his process as well. A key skill was having a vision for what the image would be after adjusting. Adams talked a lot about this as a top priority of his process.
> The claim that Ansel Adams used HDR is super likely to cause confusion
That isn't what the article claims. It says:
"Ansel Adams, one of the most revered photographers of the 20th century, was a master at capturing dramatic, high dynamic range scenes."
"Use HDR" (your term) is vague to the point of not meaning much of anything, but the article is clear that Adams was capturing scenes that had a high dynamic range, which is objectively true.
> It seems like a mistake to lump HDR capture, HDR formats and HDR display together, these are very different things.
These are all related things. When you talk about color, you can be talking about color cameras, color image formats, and color screens, but the concept of color transcends the implementation.
> The claim that Ansel Adams used HDR is super likely to cause confusion, and isn’t particularly accurate.
The post never said Adams used HDR. I very carefully chose the words, "capturing dramatic, high dynamic range scenes."
> Previously when you took a photo, if you over-exposed it or under-exposed it, you were stuck with what you got. Capturing HDR gives the photographer one degree of extra freedom, allowing them to adjust exposure after the fact.
This is just factually wrong. Film negatives have 12-stops of useful dynamic range, while photo paper has 8 stops at best. That gave photographers exposure latitude during the print process.
> Ansel Adams wasn’t using HDR in the same sense we’re talking about, he was just really good at capturing the right exposure for his medium without needing to adjust it later.
There's a photo of Ansel Adams in the article, dodging and burning a print. How would you describe that if not adjusting the exposure?
If I look at one of the photography books in my shelf, they are even talking about 18 stops and such for some film material, and how this doesn't translate to paper and all the things that can be done to render it visible in print and how things behave at both extreme ends (towards black and white). Read: Tone-mapping (i.e. trimming down a high DR image to a lower DR output media) is really old.
The good thing about digital is that it can deal with color at decent tonal resolutions (if we assume 16 bits, not the limited 14 bit or even less) and in environments where film has technical limitations.
> It seems like a mistake to lump HDR capture, HDR formats and HDR display together
Reminded me of the classic "HDR in games vs HDR in photography" comparison[0]
[0] https://www.realtimerendering.com/blog/thought-for-the-day/
But the article even shows Adams dodging/burning a print, which is 'adjusting the exposure' in a localised fashion of the high dynamic range of the film, effectively revealing detail for the LDR of the resulting print that otherwise wouldn't have been visible.
No, Adams, like everyone who develops their own film (or RAW digital photos) definitely worked in HDR. Film has much more DR than photographic paper, as noted by TFA author (and large digital sensors more than either SDR or HDR displays) especially if you’re such a master of exposure as Adams; trying to preserve the tonalities when developing and printing your photos is the real big issue.
Arguably, even considering HDR a distinct thing is itself weird an inaccurate.
All mediums have a range, and they've never all matched. Sometimes we've tried to calibrate things to match, but anyone watching SDR content for the past many years probably didn't do so on a color-calibrated and brightness calibrated screen - that wouldn't allow you to have a brightness slider.
HDR on monitors is about communicating content brightness and monitor capabilities, but then you have the question of whether to clip the highlights or just map the range when the content is mastered for 4000 nits but your monitor manages 1000-1500 and only in a small window.