What is HDR?
HDR stands for High Dynamic Range. It can reach the shooting outcome that a normal combination of aperture and shutter cannot do by compositing various photos of different exposure and conducting tone mapping. The image sensor and powerful processor merge the respective strengths of both images so that the bright areas are not overly bright and the dark details are still clear, faithfully restoring the details of the scene. HDR improves image quality with better contrast, and greater brightness and enhances the colors seen. HDR enhances image clarity in situations that are too dark or too bright. Compared with ordinary images, it can provide a more dynamic range and image details, and demonstrate the original vibrant colors to the maximum extent.
HDR to the rescue
Have you ever had such an experience?
The headlight beams of oncoming cars are too bright at night, so you can't open your eyes, or the license plate of the car in front of you is reflective, so you can't recognize the numbers? It is difficult to see clearly in this kind of high-contrast light and dark environment. At the time, the dash cam normally focuses on a bright element, and it will make everything else in the frame appear darker. If the footage from a dash camera is blurry and unrecognizable, then it will be useless when it comes to road incidents! HDR technology has been gradually integrated into dash cameras to solve this problem.
Applied HDR To Video Capture
HDR images can present a greater range of luminance levels than can be achieved using only Standard Dynamic Range (SDR) in many real-world scenes containing very bright, direct sunlight to extreme shade. So one of the main advantages of HDR is to preserve detail in both bright and dark areas of the image.
This is often achieved by capturing and then combining several, narrower ranges and exposures of the same area. It is like taking an overexposed image (too bright) and an underexposed image (too dark) and combining them. The overexposed image will show more detail in the dark areas, while the underexposed image will preserve detail in highlights. By merging them, the resulting image can display a wider range of colors and detail than the camera sensor was able to capture in a single exposure.
What Benefits
The advantage of HDR is that it improves not only nighttime videos but also daytime recordings. At night, it brightens scenes while preserving highlights, which means you can read the license plates of cars, and streetlights’ flare is reduced. On bright days, it also works wonders to minimize lens flare and reflections when facing the sun.
In all, HDR produces richer and more accurate colors day and night.