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One of the lesser known jewels in the vast array of North Wales beauty spots, this is the Sychnant Pass that runs through the hills between the coastal towns of Conway and Dwgyfylchi.
My wife Liz and I often go for a hike here, ending up at an historical iron age fort overlooking the Conway estuary and the Great Orme - but that's another view.
This scene, looking down the pass from the start of the coastal path, leads the eye down through the hills to the outskirts of Dwgyfylchi.
To the naked eye this was a lovely view, with the late afternoon sun streaming up the valley from the coast, just out of the frame to the right.
However, while my eyes could take in the full range of contrast present at the time, there was no way my camera's sensor could cope with such a large dynamic range.
So I ended up with my camera mounted on a tripod, taking five separate exposures, each one stop apart, to enable me to capture detail in both the bright sky and shadowed valley.
Combining the files in Adobe Lightroom using the 'HDR Blend' function gave me a single image file with detail in every area, suitable for further enhancements in PhotoShop to create the final image shown here.
This is one of the reasons I cart around a heavy DSLR and tripod on my photographic excursions, as there would have been no other way to capture this scene in the way I wanted.
Filename - sychnant pass 07.jpg
Camera - Canon 6D
Lens - 24-105mm zoom @ 24mm
Exposure - Various shutter speeds @ f11, ISO100
Filters - None
Location - Sychnant Pass, North Wales
This image - 800x533px JPEG
Conversion - Adobe Lightroom and PhotoShop CC
Comments - High Dynamic Range (HDR) blend of multiple exposures
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