Date Taken: 06/01/2016
Location: Flat Rock, Milepost 308.3 on the Blue Ridge Parkway in North Carolina

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Location: Rough Ridge Trail, from the Rough Ridge Overlook.
View from the Rough Ridge Trail along the Blue Ridge Parkway, near the Linn Cove Viaduct.

Camera: Canon 5D MKIII
Lens: Sigma 24-70 f/2.8
Focal Length: 24mm
ISO: 200
Shutter: Varied
Aperture: f/16
Filters: None
Exposure: Manual
How I Got This Shot: Hiked up the Rough Ridge trail to the first of the excellent overlooks. I first shot some of the excellent views of the Linn Cove Viaduct, and then started looking all around. I’ve found so many times that there are good shots behind me, that I always take the time to look after I’ve shot the obvious.

The sun popped out from behind a cloud giving me this nice shadowed area to work with in my composition, and some neat clouds rolled over the mountain. The dynamic range going from the sharp shadows to the bright clouds made think that HDR was the way to go.

I shot this with the camera mounted on a tripod, using live view and a remote cable release to eliminate shake. Using the tripod makes the HDR processing a lot easier, which is why I stayed with it, even though all the shutter speeds used were technically hand-holdable.

I shot a 5 shot group of “under” and “over” exposed shots so I would have shots with enough shadow and highlight detail to recreate the scene as my eyes saw it. I ended up choosing three of those shots -2/3 under, as camera metered, +2/3 over to make the HDR image.

Processing the final HDR image, I tried to recreate the scene as my eye saw it. The end result is pretty close to what I would have gotten 20 years ago with Fuji Velvia slide film, but with better shadow detail.

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