So the secret of photography is now, and always has been, to SELECT the "slice" of the available dynamic range that we, as the photographer, choose to select, and then make our print or final web-image based on the limitations of the medium.
So-called HDR processing is actually the process of capturing a wider than normal range of brightnesses (the HDR) and then compressing that wider range of brightnesses down into a smaller DR. I'd prefer that "HDR" was called "CDR" for compressed dynamic range. I think it would be less misleading. But that's just semantics, I guess.
In audio, people might say that the result of "HDR" processing was was "dull, lifeless, lacking the fire and emotion of the original performance."
And the same is often true of HDR photos. They're compressed. They can lack a lot of the original emotion and feeling of the scene.
Used properly, they can be very useful and make excellent photos, though. But the OP's observation of how the dynamics of the rock wall were muted is dead on.
While HDR is a great tool, and I'm pretty impressed with what this camera's built-in processing does, it's also true that the final product can be "dull-looking" or seem artificial just as with any "HDR" processing.
We have to use it with discretion and understand exactly what we're getting and what we're trading away. We don't want all of our photos to look the way a TV commercial sounds.
One thing I've noticed is that when processing RAW files, I frequently do the exact opposite of "HDR" processing. I actually move the black point upwards and sometimes I pull the white point down. This has the effect of throwing away a lot of the captured dynamic range and expanding the resulting smaller "slice" of the captured DR and stretching it outwards to fit the final DR of the finished product. In many cases, this produces a much more "dramatic" look to the shot with better contrast and saturation.
"HDR" processing does the exact opposite by smashing the DR of the original scene downwards. We end up with low contrast and often, a muted, foggy look to the image.
So we need to be aware of what's really going on when we use so-called "HDR" processing. Frequently, it's not appropriate.
Often, it's better to go the other way and select a smaller slice of the original scene's dynamic range and map that smaller "slice" of DR to the output file.
And this is what photographers have been doing since photography was invented. That's a large part of what "exposure" is all about. We consciously select the slice of the scene's DR that we wish to capture when we choose the exposure settings while shooting. Then later, we might select an even smaller slice from that capture and then "map it" to our print when we make that print.
I'm not knocking "HDR". But I do think people need to realize what it is and think about whether they want to smash the whole DR of a scene down into a print OR if it might be better to select a smaller slice of that DR and map it to the print without compression - or even take a smaller "slice" and expand it.
Often, choosing that slice of DR is as big a part of photographic composition as choosing the shooting position, camera aim, and focal length.
I often think that "HDR" is trying to relieve the photographer of the chore of setting exposure. But the tradeoff is that because "HDR" does nothing to increase the DR of our "playback" systems, we're stuck with a compressed image.
Sometimes that's great. Other times it's dull, lifeless, muddy-looking, etc.
And check out the posts above by some people who have obviously mastered the use of this camera's HDR feature. I'm liking what I see in a lot of those images. So it shows that there is a place for HDR if we can control it well.
Sorry for the length of this post.
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Jim H.
