Dynamic World Thwarts Dynamic Range Photography

I'm seeing the world with a new awareness now. It's in constant motion -- trees, clouds, birds, people, and various other objects. And unfortunately, motion thwarts multi-shot HDR. This is demonstrated by some of my HDR attempts during the recent Tigard Festival of Balloons.

This photo looks fine in the thumbnail view; I used HDR techniques to balance out the bright sunlit clouds with the blue sky and darker clouds, forming a nice backdrop for a silhouetted hot air balloon. However, click on the photo for a bigger view, and you'll see a big problem.



Specifically, the balloon moved enough during the three HDR shots (taken 0.33 seconds apart) to create ghosting. Here is a close-up:



The HDR software makes some attempt to minimize ghosting due to picture object movemement, but there is only so much it can do.

Until cameras start getting built with High Dynamic Range sensors to capture contrasty motion scenes in one shot, much of the dynamic world will remain out of reach of HDR photography.