I'm an architectural photographer by trade, and although I own all the lighting equipment, it's a PITA to lug around and move, adjust, tweak, etc. - so when HDR really became accessible and easy, I was all over it!
I like HDR because it can get really
natural results - much closer to what our eyes actually see, than what our camera tries to accomplish with one exposure. You don't lose the highlights, and you keep the shadows. How Ansel Adams would have
loved HDR!
This isn't a great example, but I wanted to show
a bit of the view outside (too much can be distracting), while obviously showcasing the office. This photo would've been a wee tricky without HDR, or a serious amount of lights to counter-balance the sunlight oozing in.
As for flashlight photography (and studio/product photography in general), I find that nothing beats a quality lighting setup... although when a tricky situation comes along, I prefer
masking a portion of the light in from a different exposure of the same scene:
Fred's beautiful Titanium Luce de Notte - with the 18mm sphere - is a bit tricky to photograph, so I took a photo with studio lights on, for the exterior, then a longer exposure with the lights off, to show off the glow from the tritium. Then I layered the two photos together in Photoshop, pasting the trit'd area over the lighted photo.
Great thread, cool pics, and great technology!
:thumbsup: john