The nice thing about the weather at the Inner Banks of North Carolina is that it’s always changing. And, for High Dynamic Range (HDR) photography, the changes are perfect. My last visit to Washington, NC was a real challenge since scenes like this were the norm. . .one minute clear skies with clouds in the distance and the next, rain.

If you check my blog occasionally, you’ll notice that this introduction seems vaguely familiar. Yes, It’s word for word from a couple of days ago. Why waste a perfectly appropriate intro?

Processing: The seven shots were loaded into Nik HDR Efex Pro for tone mapping.  I added quite a bit of structure in the water to get that smooth texture along with the more pronounced lighting variation. . .more realistic than what the camera with only one shot can produce. I left the sky/clouds alone to preserve as much realism as possible.  For the final polish, I used Curves and Shadows/Highlights in Adobe Photoshop CS6. I’ve started using the Filter > Adaptive Wide Angle function to straighten the verticals. . .worked very well for this image.

Equipment used: Nikon D700 with 20-35mm f/3.5-4.5.