Rocky Mountain National Park

Six elk feeding -- Rocky Mountain National Park. This image was processed 100% in Nik HDR Efex using the single image tonemapping feature. f/5.6 at 1/250 sec; 150mm.

Rocky Mountain National Park

Another photo from Rocky Mountain National Park. This one is processed through Nik HDR Efex as a single frame for tonemapping, adding some contrast and texture throughout. Black and white conversion done with Nik Silver Efex. It may look like this was taken at some great location along a trail or at an overlook, but it was literally taken from the deck of one of the visitor's centers in the park; f/5.6, 1/400 sec at 135mm.

Rocky Mountain National Park

...more experiments with HDR. This is from my recent trip to Rocky Mountain National Park, near Estes Park, Colorado -- 3 frames merged together with the fabulous Nik HDR Efex. It is quickly becoming my preferred HDR tool. You combine the power of HDR, the presets available in the Nik program and their U-point technology and you can come away with some otherwise impossible images. I tweaked the tones quite a bit in this one. As I sat on the bank and shot this, I had my doubts. The brackets seemed to have a strange flat blue cast. Nik HDR Efex did an outstanding job adding some color variation, and I pushed them a little further in Photoshop.
Too bad I managed to put the horizon right in the center of the frame.

Bishop's Palace HDR

Photo above of Bishop's Palace was taken in late January in Galveston. This was part of the shoot where I wanted to get an image to donate to the Family Service Center auction in February. I ultimately chose a color image with a less HDR look. This one was taken early on in the shoot; 5 bracketed exposures merged with Photomatix Pro, shot wide angle from the front sidewalk at 12mm. I'm comparing Photomatix with Nik's new HDR Efex Pro software, so I'm searching my files for brackets ... I'll be posting some results in the coming weeks.

Pelican #2

Pelican in flight in Galveston. 190mm, f/5.6, 1/1000 sec.

Pelican #1

Taken several weeks ago in Galveston. I don't think I've ever seen the water along the Galveston Ship Channel as calm and pretty than on this particular day. I normally go for the in flight shots, but the water and the reflections kept drawing me to the birds floating. 300mm, f/5.6, 1/1000 sec.

Washington on the Brazos Panorama

Another panorama -- taken several weeks ago at Washington on the Brazos, between Navasota and Brenham, Texas. This one is HDR -- 5 bracketed frames, 3 exposures each, stitched together in Photoshop.