HDR Photography

High-dynamic-range photographs are generally achieved by capturing multiple standard photographs, often using exposure bracketing, and then merging them into an HDR image. Digital photographs are often encoded in a camera's raw image format, because 8 bit JPEG encoding doesn't offer enough values to allow fine transitions (and also introduces undesirable effects due to the lossy compression).
Any camera that allows manual over- or under-exposure of a photo can be used to create HDR images.
Some cameras have an auto exposure bracketing (AEB) feature with a far greater dynamic range than others, from the 3 EV of the Canon EOS 40D, to the 18 EV of the Canon EOS-1D Mark II. As the popularity of this imaging technique grows, several camera manufactures are now offering built in HDR features. For example, the Pentax K-7 DSLR has an HDR mode which captures an HDR image and then outputs (only) a tone-mapped JPEG file. The Canon PowerShot G12 and Canon PowerShot S95 offer similar features in a smaller format. Even some smartphones now include HDR modes.