Spot On!

After a day of fighting the "bureaucracy of healthcare" again (I promise I won't get into a dissertation of my extreme disappointment and frustration of the "new" system set up by people who don't know what the H___ they are doing - 'nuf said), we were finally able to get ourselves appointments with the doctor - for next week. I'm fine, but J is fighting a bad infection. He was, however, able to get the medication he needed.

But, by the end of the day, I was so frustrated and irritable, I needed to just get outside. Thankfully, it was a bright and sunny late afternoon. I took a long walk up on the bluff overlooking the front range, and caught a number of wonderful shots of the sunset and early evening. Yes, I have shot numerous photos from this point, but I never tire of the sunset over the mountains.

Look LARGE.

And, I really love this lens - the 16-35mm f4 lens. I have run it through many tests, and it has performed in spectacular fashion. I think I have decided to sell/trade my 18-200mm DX and buy one of these. I am already sad about having to send this rental lens back on Monday. While I also like the 12-24mm DX lens, the 16-35mm outperforms the 12-24mm in every way.

This shot was a bracketed set of 5 shots with 1 EV between them. I then used HDR Efex to merge the shots. I used the "balanced" shot, added a bit more contrast and reduced the saturation a bit. I then added a Silver Efex black and white version to overlay at 60% opacity. There was probably a lot more that I could do, but I decided that I liked this well enough.

I also wanted to compliment all of you for the wonderful images that you have been posting lately. I have been very impressed with many of them, and have seen that others are too since there are so many in the spotlight. Congrats all!