looking at the front page of the web Seattle Times it appears the picture of the Alabama tornado aftermath uses either tonemapping or HDR. I haven't personally seen a lot of this in the news and wonder if it's part of a shift in photojournalism processing?
Oh dang, the photo changed. I thought the dynamic range was pretty high and that there was an awful lot of detail in the bricks of the wall for keeping detail in the bright sky.
Plenty blown out. Range is impressive but it's generally bad enough that I hope he didn't take time to edit it. May have done tone mapping during RAW conversion.
Looks like he was playing with tonemapping more than HDR. . . Still, its nice to see our photo journalistic brethren getting into the "make it look pretty" game...as long as they don't transfer those skills to mugshots. For crying out loud the last thing we need is a bunch of scarless/freckleless/glowing skinned arrestees hitting the newspaper. LOL.
Personally, I'd be very surprised if the AP allowed the use of HDR in photojournalistic shots, and I'd be even more surprised to see photographers doing it. There is ethical debate about whether HDR should be allowed in such shots... and with immediacy being such a key component of this field of work, I can't see photographers being able to take the time to do it.
The shots quoted in this thread honestly don't look HDR to me...
I think I probably meant tonemapping more than HDR. I think it is unlikely this represent more than one shot. Others are probably right it's just good lighting and maybe there is a reflective surface lighting up the lower wall.
