exposure exposé

[Insert standard nerdy photography post disclaimer here.]

So, I stumbled across this post, which is billed as the ultimate beginner’s guide to exposure. It’s actually not a bad little intro, but I did notice something extremely hilarious.

If you go to the actual section called “Exposure”, you’ll note that they’ve provided three examples for “Overexposed”, “Underexposed”, and “Exposed well”. The funny part? I am 99.9% confident that the “Exposed well” example is just a composite of the first two (or more) pictures. How can you tell? Look at the lows of the Overexposed and the highs of the Underexposed – they’re both at the same level in the “well exposed” shot. If this were truly a well exposed shot in between the two, you’d see an image that was more of a compromise between the two. Combining highs/lows in this way to get greater dynamic range is a fundamental benefit/function of HDR compositing. I’m not sure if it’s actually HDR/tonemapped, but it’s definitely a composite of some sort. Ironic that a tutorial on fundamental photography basics resorted to digital manipulation to provide the “exposed well” example. Fail.