Often when I see a HDR image it isn’t really a HDR image… That’s deep. It is most of the time some overly tone mapped exposure(s) pushed far beyond the range of what the data that was actually captured is capable of covering.

There are 2 major problems with the HDR argument.

One: What constitutes a HDR? How large of an EV range does an image need to have to be considered a High Dynamic Range image as opposed to a LDR?

And

Two: Your eye can see a much large range of light then the best digital or film camera can capture. So, when you look at a LDR image from your camera it isn’t actually anything like what your eyes see in terms of EV stops. So your feelings about the realism or accuracy of HDR images is based on what we have grown accustomed to expecting in LDR exposures.
A properly constructed HDR will more accurately depict what your eye sees then a traditional LDR photo. We just aren’t used to seeing images like that. For over a hundred years we have been stuck in a LDR world where we have to interpret what we see into a flattened contrasty, dumb down version of what is really visible to the human eye and we have taken that as the standard.

Now I’m not knocking standard photography. I personally like high contrast and silhouettes in my images. I do however think that most people are truly uninformed as to what a HDR image is and where it falls into the grand scheme of things.

Some Numbers:

Human Eye: 14 EV some even say it goes as high as 20EV but the standard agreeable figure is 14
HDR: as many as you want
FIlm & Digital Sensor: 6-8 EV
Print: 6 EV

I would like to know what cameras are taking higher EV stops then the human eye…. We should all have one if it exists.

Often when I see an HDR image I have to look closely to determine whether it is a photograph, a very detailed drawing, or a 3D render. I’m a little bit wary of them for this reason, and I’d really rather people don’t misrepresent them as anything other than HDR images.

all in all don’t discredit HDR its just another field

My problem with HDR is that too many people, particularly tech geeks, focus on it instead of basic traditional photographic techniques for handling lighting, color, and timing. I’ve even heard people say things like “wow, that’s a nice HDR!”.

[I unfortunately also fall into this bin of tech geeks who know a lot more about camera equipment than photography. On that note, i’ll also say that the latest and greatest of DSLRs has a higher dynamic range than the human eye, but lacks the brain for adjusting the exposure on the fly]

Display technology is limited, and print technology is limited in different ways, but a good photograph looks good on both.

I’m not really such a stranger - I visit pretty much every day, but am shy of commenting on every post, though I enjoy all, be they plants, photography, family or just life in Japan !

Most HDR is firmly planted in the “art” category, IMHO.

Your summary seems completely reasonable to me. I’d only modify the last bit slightly, to suggest that there are thin, wispy tentacles of HDR that do venture into “photography” – the few cases where it really is used to get around current technical limitations – such as I did in the lanterns shot at the top of the post. —Jeffrey