THE PICTURE OF THE DAY, 12/12/2013

10 seconds, f/6.3, ISO 200 — taken 12/7/2013
In camera HDR, 3 exposures

“The Tree of Life”

Anyone who knows me or has gone shooting in the ‘Parks with me knows how much I absolutely, positively LOVE Animal Kingdom at night.  I think the park is absolutely gorgeous at night with the subdued landscape lighting and the illumination of the buildings.  It has a sort of “haunted beauty” to it, especially the darker areas around Discovery Island, Africa, and Asia.

This image was made using my Sony NEX-6’s in-camera HDR mode, set to 4 stops EV (this gives a spread of -2, 0, +2) with a base exposure of 10 seconds.  As such the subsequent exposures were 2.5 seconds and 40 seconds.  I then went into Photoshop and popped out the shadow detail to give some foreground and ran some contrast and sharpening on the tree to give it some pop.

Please let me know if this shot wows you as much as I hope it does in the comments below and thanks for checking in!