omposition meant that I wouldn’t be able to use my gradiated filters, but I still wanted to capture both the shape of the sun, as well as the waves, sand and trees. This presents a number of HUGE problems because both the waves and leaves were moving around so much that HDR was almost out the window (I did try it and it looked AWFUL).

This first shot is a single JPG, and you can see that if we are exposing for the sky the detail in the sand, leaves and trees is underexposed.

Canon 7D f5.0, 1/2000, 320
I bracketed the shots thinking I could HDR the three layers, but as I said it looked awful.

A second way you can get around this is to “paint” the 3 layers together. Its a little more involved, but sometimes you can get nice results. This was not one of those times:

3 Layers “Painted Together”If you look carefully in the leaves, there are a lot of ghosts and shadows. So essentially, the result is not that great.

How what is the best way to get an HDR type shot on a subject that is mostly moving? Answer is coming soon…..