SmartHDR, HDR +, Auto HDR, Smart HDR, etc. If you’ve been familiar with the world of mobile photography for a few years you won’t have stopped hearing about HDR, although it is not clear to everyone what it is, how it works and what it brings in this area.
Thus, it is necessary to explain what is HDR, how it is used in current smartphones (with Google as the main example), and comment if there are any tip to get the most out of it when we take pictures with our mobile.
What is HDR and how is it implemented in today’s smartphones
Google was (and is) a pioneer in mobile HDR technology. In 2014, he was already telling us about himself.
HDR is short for High Dynamic Range, and in mobile photography it’s a mode that does what the name suggests, increasing (or trying to do) the dynamic range in our photographs. And what is dynamic range?
In mobile photography, HDR mode is used (in theory) to increase the dynamic range of photos
The objective of mobile HDR is therefore try to get the maximum dynamic range, which is achieved by dealing with lights and shadows in the best possible way. If you’ve ever had a burnt sky (all white) it’s because of a dynamic range problem, if the sky went well, but everything else is dark, ditto, and so on with d ‘countless situations in which phones suffer a lot to get a good balance in the final photography.
As a picture is worth a thousand words, we leave you with a small example in which it is well understood what do we mean by prioritizing dynamic range in a photograph.
On the right, the image with the highest dynamic range.
Despite the fact that the photograph on the right has a greater exposure and retrieves much more information from the shadows, the information from the highlights (the sun in the background and the light it generates) is respected compared to what our eyes have seen. In other words, we have highlights information and shadow information has been retrieved
Without HDR, the mobile is unable to recover the information after the highlights.
So, when your mobile is running in HDR, try to get as much information as possible from the scene, to a greater or lesser extent. How do you do that? Combine multiple photos with different exposures, generating a final photograph with the information you obtained.
This combination of images depends on your phone’s processing capacity. Devices like the Google Pixel take a few seconds to process HDR photographs, due to the large amount of information they get from them. Other alternatives, dedicate RAM exclusively to image processing, to streamline the process.
If we go out of the high end, we are faced with HDR technologies that work reasonably well, but limited by their own processing capabilities.
Tips for enjoying HDR
In fgeneral, we recommend that you enable automatic HDR for your photos, since some companies (like Xiaomi) generally bring it disabled by default in their terminals. In this way, the mobile will decide for itself when is the right time to activate it or not. In our experience, while it’s not foolproof, HDR usually kicks in when it should.
If we are going to shoot moving objects or at night on a low or medium range mobile, turning off HDR may be a good option.
However, there are special situations in which, if your mobile is not high-end, it may be convenient to turn it off. The first concerns moving objects. HDR photos take longer than normal photos (since the phone takes longer), and if the subject is moving and your mobile takes photos slowly even during the day, the photo may shake.
The second condition (with some nuances) is that in low light conditions, HDR may not be a great ally. It will depend on the phone and again, the range (alternatives like the Pixel apply HDR at night and it works flawlessly). In other cases, applying HDR at night results in less sharpness and poorer processing, so choosing to turn it off or use alternatives such as night mode may be a better solution.
