Glenorchy Jetty, NZ, originally uploaded by jezza323.

Looking from the end of the jetty back towards Glenorchy, south of Queenstown, in New Zealand.

Taken with Pentax K200D and Sigma 10-20 f4.0-5.6, handheld

3 shots taken at +/-2.0 EV and blended using Photomatix Exposure Blend, final processing in Lightroom 3

A lot of the photos from my Queenstown honeymoon are done using exposure blending in Photomatix, the main reason for this is that with the high mountains all around and the low angle of the sun due to being so far south in the middle of the year means you have very strong shadows from the mountains falling over half of your shots, but not over the rest!

These shadows everywhere make it quite hard to prevent blown out highlights, while maintaining good detail in the darker areas of the shot. A quick swap to Bracketing mode on the camera gets 3 shots at +/- 2.0 EV, and a little extra processing results in a much better balanced final image.