Print goodness

I shall soon have a baker's dozen of prints heading my way.  One 20x30, one 16x24,  and eleven 12x18's. The two large prints are destined for the local frame shop after they arrive, to be delivered to a customer/friend/LJ user, who shall remain nameless if she wants. 

The eleven smaller prints are for me, to beef up my in-stock collection. At the very least, I want to get them mounted and matted. I'm hoping I can get them all framed, which should give me enough for a showing.

Yay, I say.

High Dynamic Range images

Photographing landscapes, I often run into the situation where the dynamic range of the scene is beyond what the camera can record. What I mean by that is that the brightest and darkest parts of a scene can't both be show at the same time. An example would be shooting a scene with details in shadow in the foreground, and a bright sky with clouds visible above the trees in the background.  If I expose the scene so I can see the details in the shadowy foreground, the sky gets so bright it is almost pure white, and the cloud details disappear entirely. If I expose so I can see the details in the clouds, the shadowy foreground turns black. 

The problem is, an outdoor scene might have a dynamic range of 100,000:1.  Our eyes have a dynamic range of about 10,000:1, and a digital camera can only see about 400:1.  So for many situations, you simply can't record all the detail that is there.

( One solution is High Dynamic Range Imaging )