Yosemite

Half Dome from Glacier Point, Yosemite National Park, California.
I recently visited Yosemite with my brother and was blessed with good weather, gushing waterfalls and great lessons from the Ansel Adams Gallery staff. We stayed at the Hostelling International Yosemite Bug Rustic Mountain Resort in Midpines. http://www.yosemitebug.com/.
I took a 4 hour class with Christine White-Loberg, who was entertaining, funny and informative for a wide range of photographers. Phillip Nicholas and Lucas were also very helpful.
This image is a high dynamic range image from 9 photographs tone mapped together with Photomax Pro and some adjustments in Lightroom 3. I took the photos on June 10th, 2011 from Glacier Point at 1:41 P.M. at f/32 aperture priority with each photo bracketed 1 stop apart from -5 to +3. ISO 100 and the focal length was 58mm from my Nikon D90. WB was auto. I precariously set my sturdy tripod up in the crowded corner of the viewing platform corner wall after patiently waiting for the zillion tourists to take their photo and move on. The auto bracket sequence is ->0>+ and I use the auto timer to keep the shake down as well as the moving the mirror up a few seconds before the shutter opens. the D90 will also trigger 3 shots automatically during the timer mode, but no more than 3 so I have to manually set the bracket values fairly fast before the clouds move too far. With a 1 stop bracket difference, I set up the first set of 3 shots at -4, so when the sequence fires each shot it starts off at -5 > -4 > -3. I then have to adjust the next set to -1 (-2 > -1 > 0) and the last set at +2 (+1 > +2 > +3) to get all 9 shots a stop apart.
Photomatix tone maps the 9 images together to get the HDR image with the perfect exposures and I adjust the image in Lightroom.
To see all my Yosemite pictures from this trip visit http://www.jeffparryphotography.com/Landscapes/Yosemite/17496947_SH4SFN.
Not all the photographs I shot are HDR, because as Christine said, "that's cheating." I purchased a 4 stop graduated filter and lens holder, but that's for another blog...
Jeff