HDR and Landscapes - Trying to keep it real

HDR is something I personally have stayed out of for the longest time... I think its mainly after seeing so many pictures that looks so unrealistic in the web. That certainly leaves a real bad taste in my mouth and most of my friends may have got the idea that I am against HDR... Can't blame them really but the truth can't be further from that.

HDR (High-Dynmic-Range) imaging came into the field since the camera sensors had a lower dynamic range than the human eye. We humans have the ability to pick details in dark places while still seeing a well lit night city skyline... Then people started to combine images into one single composite which can yield a better dynamic range.. in other words, get the best parts of 3 different exposures and combine them to get one picture. But as I mentioned before, the majority of examples in the web are of cases where the dynamic range was inherently low.. but the user tried to increase it by HDR... (Don't believe me.. do a Google image search for "HDR photography") :D

I will use an example of a landscape shoot I did a little back on a warm summer evening. I saw the signs of an extraordinary sunset and rushed out to get the shot I wanted. I was a tad late on getting there so, had to act fast and think on my feet to capture it before the sun is completely gone.  So, I set up my composition and exposure and took a test shot. Since the sun was still completely visible, there was a lot of light coming into the camera. Therefore I had to go with a fast shutter speed to avoid blowing out my background. I obtained this result below -

This gave me a nice exposure.. but yet the foreground (the tree and the lead up to it) is completely black (dark) due to me adjusting for the sun.  This is not a problem, but it would be nice to show some of the foreground with light as well. Therefore, I changed my frame to vertical (had nothing to do with HDR.. I usually shoot both ways) and took 3 exposures where one was completely under exposed, a normal exposure, and an over exposed picture. Now there are many ways of combining these. Few freeware software packages are out there as well. I didn't like the outcome of most of them.. some were too noisy and some gave halo effects and well as unrealistic color tones. So, I stuck to a more conventional method in combining these 3 images into one to give  a virtually noise free realistic (if you can call it that) image as below -

You may note that the foreground is now lit way better than the previous case. But the clouds may not be as dramatic as the first case. This is something that can be easily fixed, but thought to keep that for another day. You may have also noticed that I have made a nicer signature than before :D (which was simply my name). A big shout out for Scotts Photographics for the how to tutorial on that (link).  Let me know if anyone is interested in how to get this kind of an HDR result.. I will post another tutorial for that in the future (depending on the demand). 

Please do note that all pics are copyrighted. 

Thank you!
Akila.