Balcones Canyonlands

Well, I decided yesterday afternoon that towards sundown I would head into the hills west of Austin to check the status of the bluebonnets, spend a couple hours exploring the back roads, and take a shot at recording the sunset.

Now, about anybody can record the sunset if they've got a camera, but I'm thinking high art - you know, Texas Highways quality. So I got my "little" Canon out and set it up to take bracketed exposures that I could post-process with my high dynamic range (HDR) software. The reason for all this is, of course, that I need the practice. I spent all evening working on the pictures. As I start preparing this post, it's 2:42 Sunday morning. And, since my bed's waiting for me in the other room, I guess that makes me an April fool. Here are some of the pictures; you tell me.

This first one is looking across Cow Creek and the limestone bluff on the other side is representative of the balcones, or balconies, which give Balcones Canyonlands National Wildlife Refuge its name.

This is where I was headed, a small pass in the hills with a western vista of the type used by photographers wanting to shoot sunsets. My timing was pretty good. This was my first shot after arriving on the ridge.

This was taken from basically the same spot, but looking south. I was worried driving out here that I wouldn't have any clouds to add interest to the sky. There weren't many, but the ones that were there worked very nicely.

Not much to say about these two, but they do show the benefit of the HDR program I bought for post-processing. Typically, shots like these would have very little detail showing in the foreground. A person standing there could see the detail, but most cameras have trouble capturing both the sunset and back-lit details in the foreground because of their limited dynamic range. By putting the camera on a tripod and taking 3 exposures, bracketing the "normal" exposure, I can capture the colorful sunset with an under-exposure and the foreground details with an over-exposure. The "normal" exposure, the middle of the range, is used to blend the other two.

I'm pleased with the results, considering how little practice I've had with this. And on top of that, the post-processing is fun and it does a good job of keeping me off the streets. . .

I almost forgot. I used both cameras while I was out there, so tomorrow I'll post some shots from the "big" Canon. I can prepare them after I've had some sleep. It's 3:26; have a nice April Fool's Day.