A friend of mine saw this photo on my website and said, “Nice HDR” Yes it has a lot of range to it, but it was only one shot. Most people are used to taking multiple exposures to capture each part of the range of light and then using a program to combine the photos for an HDR. With a good DSLR, in this case a Nikon D800, I was able to do this in one shot. Looking at the LCD monitor you would think it would come out terrible. Use the histogram to see exactly what you have. Too much on the left no darks, too much on the right no whites. The LCD is a jpg rendering of the photo and does not tell the whole story. Using Adobe Camera RAW I was able to bring out the shadows and take down the highlights to get the detail. A few more adjustments and there you have it.
