HDR

I've recently started taking HDR photos.  For those who are not sure what that is, HDR stands for High Dynamic Range.  Have you ever taken a photo where the sky was nice and blue, or you had a beautiful sunset, but the person in the photo is totally dark?  Or just the opposite, you have your person looking nice and illuminated, but the background, your sky, is blown out and totally white.  Here's an example, I have a nice sunset captured, but all detail in the foreground is black.

With HDR photography, you take multiple exposures of the same shot.  For instance, I take the shot like above where the sky is just how I want it, I take one where the foreground is just how I want it, and one in between.  In fact, you can combine more than just three photos, but you need at least three the majority of the time.  This is really basic, but for anyone more interested in HDR, do a Google search on it.  :)

So, here's the result when I take 5 photos at different exposure levels and combine them together.

You'll notice that everything is properly exposed.  The sky and the foreground.  Another cool thing with HDR is you can really push some other settings to give it a surreal kind of look, or you can chose to give it a more natural look...all a matter of preference and what you're trying to accomplish.

Here's a few more I've done recently.

Taken with a fisheye lens, which gives it the linear distortion you see

Another fisheye shot