Rick Sammon is an author whose enthusiasm comes leaping through his writings on photography, and this characteristic is so delightful that it makes reading any of his books a pleasure. In "Rick Sammon's HDR Photography Secrets for digital photographers" [sic] he turns his attention to high dynamic range photography ("HDR") and other techniques for extending the range of light in a photograph from the limited reach of digital cameras toward the range of the human eye.
After a hit-and-run set of general photography tips he talks about the general considerations of HDR photography including the importance of bracketing and the conflict between artistic and realistic output. He describes the use of what has become the most popular HDR software, Photomatix Pro, and then explains the effects of a Photoshop plug-in, Topaz Adjust. He also discusses a few other techniques that will expand the range of light like adjustments in Adobe Camera Raw, and then some special output techniques like panoramas and black-and-white photography. He describes his own equipment and lists several web sites that he finds useful. A few chapters consist mainly of Sammon's own HDR images without much explanation.
The discussions that I found most useful were the question of when to use HDR instead of standard processing and when each of the three modes in Photomatix (exposure fusion, detail enhancer and tone compressor) would be most appropriate.
When new technologies are introduced, I consider photography books worth reading just because they introduce the new techniques. As a technology matures, I hold books to a higher standard than the earlier books because the main questions that photographers ask are now apparent. This book would have been terrific a few years ago but today it just joins a host of books about HDR.
Among the more frequent questions I hear about HDR is how to use the many sliders and buttons in Photomatix to achieve certain effects and how to achieve realistic results while extending the range of light. Sammon explains what the sliders and buttons do, but his explanations are even briefer than those contained in the rollover instructions in Photomatix, and he merely tells readers to play with the sliders. As to achieving realistic results, the majority of the author's images fall into the artistic, or surrealistic, category that makes so many people dislike HDR. Moreover the plug-ins discussed, like Topaz, seem designed to create these surrealistic effects rather than truly extend the range of light. (Sammon believes that most of the Topaz effects can be created in Photoshop, although with more work than Topaz. I would have liked to see how this could be done.)
Another problem I've seen is that many photographers don't know how to set up their cameras in the most effective way to capture HDR images. Given the number of cameras on the market, such instruction is certainly beyond this book, but photographers should go over the manuals that came with their cameras to find out how to set up bracketing, neutralize settings and fire a burst quickly.
Because true HDR images are created by combining several successive images, moving subjects are a particular problem but this aspect is completely ignored.
In summary this book is a lot of fun to read, and useful if one has not read other books about HDR, but adds little to the existing body of knowledge. I suspect that what is now most needed for learning HDR photography is a book of tutorials with practice images that can be used to learn the specifics of Photomatix.
![[Start the discussion]](http://g-ecx.images-amazon.com/images/G/01/x-locale/communities/discussion_boards/start-new-discussion-sec._V192250339_.gif){kind=small}
