Scenic Overlook
A couple years ago, I decided to zoom past a scenic overlook on I-26 northbound in western North Carolina just south of the Tennessee border. However, when I looked back to see what I'd missed I regretted not stopping. Near the end of our journey back home from Florida this year, I didn't care that it was cold and windy or that I'd be standing on an exposed hilltop after a long, steep walk, or that we were trying to outdistance a bad winter storm. I just had to capture the scene. It was way too cold to pull a lot of things out of the car and unpack my pano gear, so I used a hot-shoe bubble level and rotated the ballhead. I even shot with the camera mounted horizontally instead of vertically to avoid including the parking area and any more of the interstate than I had to.
Nikon D3S, ISO 320, f/22, zoom at 116 mm, eight overlapping HDRs with four 1 EV increments
Each of the eight segments was tone-mapped in Nik HDR Efex before the pano was stitched.
Each segment was processed with Topaz Simplify Watercolor II, several Fractalius B&W presets at Multiply blend mode, Alien Skin Stylize Line Art B&W at both Multiply and Divide blend modes, and some textures. The interstate, which ran through the low area in the foreground just to the right of center in the middle image and just to the left of center in the lower one, had to be covered with trees and fields from the left side of the scene. (The content-aware patch tool in Photoshop CS6 is a wonderful thing.)
