SUNDAY MORNING ON THE SKYWAY PART II

Canon EOS DIGITAL REBEL XS, Tamron 28-80 lens @ 28mm, ISO 100, 3 Exposure HDR @ f/14

  In my second installment of my Sunday morning jaunt on the Cherohala Skyway I found what might be my favorite pic that I have ever taken.
  I was photographing the Telliquah covered bridge at the beginning of the skyway. I was under the bridge shooting when I noticed that the dry air had given me a tremendous nose bleed.  I took what I needed to under the bridge and was trying to get back to my truck to clean myself up when I found this scene up by the road.
  The sun was just starting to show against the foothills in the background accenting a beautiful blue sky with the old wooden fence and the curving mountain top leading me from the foreground to the background. The hey grass adds the dot to the i in the foreground. 
  I immediately started bracketing shots because of the extreme light to dark contrast in the shot.
  When I got home and started doing the HDR process, I was getting everything I wanted in the shot with the exception of the trees on the left and the sky. QTPFSGUI has a horrible time with bright light and skies. I just couldn't get it to work out.
  I text'd brother Jim and asked him if he could take a look at it in Photomatix and he agreed.  For most HDR processing, QTPFSGUI does a very good job and I can get nice images from it, but the future will see me purchasing Photomatix.  I used the trial version and it is like night and day.  With brother Jim at the helm it is like magic.  He sent me a message this morning that he completed it.
  When I got the images from him I was blown away!  The color and detail were exactly what I wanted and it is exactly what I saw on Sunday morning.
  Once again thanks go out to Jim for completing my vision of the shot that is my new favorite. Hopefully I won't have to call on you much longer.