The iPhone vs My Digital Camera for HDR Photography

When I think about the things that defy physics, such as cats jumping straight up four times their height, iPhone photography also comes to mind. Honestly, its pictures shouldn’t look that good.

This size of the image sensor in my iPhone 12 Pro Max is 1/1.9". By comparison, the APS-C sensor in my Fujifilm X100V is ginormous and gathers more than 10 times the amount of light. And yet, in dim conditions, the iPhone works quite well.

These are the weird things that I think about, beer in hand, as I watch the sun disappear beneath the ocean horizon. Under such beautiful, but photographically challenging conditions, I want to capture the colors of the sky and the subdued texture of the sand.

Traditional photography says that I have to choose between the two because exposure-wise, the ground is so much darker than the sunset. You’ve seen the pictures where the entire bottom half of the frame is jet black. That’s why most folks just shoot the sky and call it a night.

I want both. And I know how to do it.

High Dynamic Range photography is the answer. It lets me create the picture I want: soft…