HDR - Sunrise over the Dam

This morning I finally had a chance to get out and play a little with the new camera. I would love to know some thoughts on this HDR image:

obviously, the bottom could be brighter (maybe do 5 shots instead of 3), but wow...helluva sky.

The sunrise sky is fine,... actually great. As dark as it must have been there probably wasn't much light on the bridge to gather in, but to get the benefit of HDR you had to get more shots on the opened up end. Since you had the camera on a tripod, after you shot the first burst of three you could have just jumped down a few stops on compensation and shot another burst.

It's tough to make a great shot when the sky is all you have. It would have been better if there was a location where you could have gotten some other elements in the scene which would have led your viewer around the picture, and perhaps give more reflection of the sunrise on the water.

I realy love it. Great work

I feel like there is a fine line between showing enough detail and the photo looking fake, at least when i am the one making the HDR. I did take five different photos, the last two having a really blown out sky. I have struggled adding them into the mix without botching this. Like I indicated, I am sure this is just my lack of skills. I played with it a little more, and I think I like this even better now.

Both edits are great. It comes down to what you are trying to present. As I look at them, the original one is a picture of the sky with the dam framing it and your eye is drawn to the sky. The second one is a bit more confusing to me. It's more like a picture of the dam with a beautiful sky above but there is more competition for the eye and the subject is less clear to me. In any event, great job on both.

Very good work, I like it.

Thanks everyone!

Great work but here's an alternative: I also do HDR and something I tried when making an hdr image of a suject with a brightly colored sky in the background making the subject darker because of the sky, I take 2 sets of 5 to 7 exposures.

1st set: Focus is set on bridge, yes the sky will be blown out as the camera will compensate to get proper exposure on the dark bridge, but this will allow you to get maximum details on the bridge.

2nd set: Focus on the sky, yes the bridge will be very dark but this is where 1st set comes in handy.

Now use your hdr software to seperatly merge the 2 sets of exposures. Bring ther 2 resulting images in photoshop and bring the sky from the second image into the first...and voila !

Thanks Joe. I am going to try this method out this weekend if the weather cooperates.