p.1 #1 · Wrapping my head around shooting HDR photos and printing
I could use some advice regarding Nikon's HDR implementation and converting photos for later printing.
I recently bought a Nikon Z6III and I have been enjoying shooting HDR with the camera, not only for the resulting images, but for the benefits the new HDR viewfinder brings to the shooting experience. However, what I am coming up against is the issue of wanting to print some of the resulting photos while at the same time getting lost in the interface and knowing how to get good results.
I'm aware of the preview for SDR panel in LR and I have been experimenting with it but I'm in the early stages of understanding how best to use that panel.
For those of you who shoot HDR NEF's, with or without JPEGS, using the Z6III can you offer any recommendations on prepping these types of images for printing? I would like to shoot using the HDR features of the camera in hopes of getting better prints than I would otherwise get from shooting SDR images.
Is that possible or is it more hassle than it is worth?
Is shooting in HDR the wrong choice when my end goal is a print?
p.1 #2 · Wrapping my head around shooting HDR photos and printing
So I have no experience with the Nikon Z6III, but I do use HDR capture and HDR Display features in LrC. You basically can't print "HDR Display" images; the dynamic range of photo paper which uses reflectance is much, much lower than the dynamic range of an HDR capable display which uses light transmission.
p.1 #3 · Wrapping my head around shooting HDR photos and printing
In any system and in simple terms, HDR is basically cleverly combining an under exposed, a normal exposure and an overexposed frame into a new single frame with few to no blown highlights and few to no clipped shadows, all now viewable on normal media. The cleverness can be in an image processing program where multiple separate images are combined and tone mapped, or performed inside the camera itself.
As a general rule, the need for it has waned as cameras DR ranges have risen to where it’s not needed for most normal shooting situations. I certainly wouldn’t use it all the time, but there are exceptions. I would use it in a situation I know I need it, like clearly rendering a dark interior where I also want to render a normal looking blue sky and clouds showing through the windows.
p.1 #4 · Wrapping my head around shooting HDR photos and printing
Let me clarify a few things. There is the process of HDR Capture (typically combining multiple shots at different exposures to capture the full dynamic range of the scene) and HDR Display which is post-processing and displaying images with a higher range of luminance values to take advantage of the newer HDR displays/monitors. The preview for SDR panel in LrC to which the OP referred is part of the HDR Display workflow. Images that are edited for HDR capable monitors won't look good when printed unless they are adjusted with a "gain map" (effectively an implementation of tone mapping) to display/print appropriately on SDR output devices (e.g. photo paper or a standard monitor).
If it sounds a bit confusing, it is. This is partially due to the term "HDR" having been used for years in the photography space, but that use is what I'm referring to as HDR Capture. "HDR Display" capabilities are quite new and the ecosystem for supporting the newer file formats, monitors, viewers, and post-processing tools is not mature yet but it's getting there. Another way of thinking about it is HDR Capture is the process of capturing (typically by combining multiple exposures of the same scene) the actual range of luminance in scenes we can perceive with the human eye. HDR Display is the the process of displaying those images on an output device that has a much higher range of output values (e.g. an HDR capable monitor) than we've traditionally used. Check out the Greg Benz Photography website for instructional content on HDR for a better explanation .
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