The Canon 5Diii has an in camera HDR feature which automatically merges 3 separate exposures together and then adds some light tone mapping to produce a 4th and separate file.

I initially brushed this off simply because there are many settings and tweaks typically required to get good HDR type shots and the 5Diii lacks these settings, but I decided to test it out anyway.

To get good HDR shots, it is well known that you should shoot subject matter that does not change (or move), and I decided to intentionally break this rule by shooting moving subjects.

To be honest, I was pleasantly surprised with the results.

I believe that this HDR feature is REALLY useful, for a couple reasons:

1. The 5Diii automatically lines up the shots, so you don’t necessarily have to have a tripod. (Though it helps)

2. Speed- It is super quick- No downloading images onto your computer.

3. This can almost be a quick and dirty way to “test HDR” a composition. If it is looking good, then you can set up and do it right if you feel the need.

Here are some of my test shots- First the controls (Unmerged images with corresponding exposure values)This is the resulting HDR image. This is really an unfair test because the wind was blowing hard and the trees were really shaking in the wind. Still I was impressed with this and decided to try a little more….Again, totally unfair subject matter. I would never attempt to do HDR in a windy situation such as this because of all the fringing that is inevitable…But….I kept on testing…and some of the results were better….….and even others were extremely good….wow!After seeing the above image, I decided to give it the ultimate HDR test….Waves…with a sunset background. Each image would have a different set of waves to pull information from, I was expecting a blob, but not so. Aside from the fringing in the clouds and the over exposure in the waves, I thought it did extremely well (remember this is all handheld too).Please note that this is all SOOC (no adjustments made besides resizing and labeling). The above shots were done with “Art Vivid” selection, which I believe is the most interesting.
These last 2 were done on Saturday with “Natural” selected. Still…not too bad for handheld on moving subjects. Hats off to Canon on this nice little feature. I really, REALLY like it and am looking forward to playing around with it more.