Still no snow : )

Heavy frost and wetland, Munising, MI

This image was taken a week or so ago the morning after I had been up all night during the Leonid meteor shower. Lots of heavy frost, I even had it on my tripod! I came to realize I really don't have many frost photos-- for one - because by this time of year we usually have a good covering of snow on the ground!
This image is not possible with conventional single exposure photography due to the very large dynamic range in the picture, the camera can't balance out everything in one exposure from the sun to the bright horizon to the backlit shadows. In the past, I have pretty much dismissed HDR, but in this situation I gave it a go. Image was made stacking 6 images at different exposure times and tone mapping with HDR software. So many times, I see some really fake looking HDR. My goal here was to reproduce exactly what I saw that morning. The key in my mind to this process is not to overdo the highlights,(or shadows in the sky) which is so tempting when you see what is revealed in the highlights. This is in line with what I read from a BW photog that studied with Ansel when mentioning in the digital post process the overabundance of photographers sharpening everything to death- why?- because they can. So, verdict on HDR- What do you think?