The view over the forest canopy from the tree top bridge in the McRitchie Reservoir Park is quite impressive. However, even late afternoon (the bridge is locked after 5pm), the contrast between the shadows and the still bright sky is too wide to be captured properly by the sensor of a camera.
All conditions were then met to experiment with HDR (High Dynamic Range) photography. For the resulting image above, 5 pictures were taken of the same scene at different shutter speeds (correct exposure, -1 stop, -2 stops, +1 stop and +2 stops). They were then merged in Photoshop using the HDR function, which mixes the exposures to achieve a more neutral tonality across the image.
When the exposures are taken, best is to have the camera on a tripod with trigger by cable release. For this particular image, the camera was hand held and the hanging bridge shaking slightly... By far not the most favourable conditions. Then focus should be manual, camera on aperture priority (to avoid change in depth of field between the shots), white balance fixed (not on auto) and, preferably, ISO should be kept low (as HDR photography tends to create background noise). For Nikon camera, when auto bracketing is used with release on continuous, the number of shots selected in the auto bracketing series will be taken automatically. It is then not necessary to change the shutter setting between each shots.
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