Experiments with HDR

I've recently started experimenting a lot more with High Dynamic Range imaging (aka HDR). My software of choice is the most excellent HDR Efex Pro from Nik Software. Ideally such images are supposed to be produced from 3 or 5 or even 7 original photos, all taken with the camera on a tripod and each individual photo taken at a different exposure. But with a photo loaded into Adobe Lightroom, virtual copies can be created and artificial exposures assigned to each.  With this approach, I typically have one at normal exposure, a second at -2.0 f-stops below and the third at +2.0 f-stops above. HDR Efex Pro then combines the images together and let's you tinker with the final image in an endless series of ways.

The first two photos were taken last October at my mom's family's homestead in rural Saskatchewan.  The last two were taken in downtown Los Angeles in February.