One Scene, Six Ways

The Fall foliage season is pretty much over in upstate New York but certain trees hang on longer than others. I don't know the name of the variety, but there is a maple with leaves that turn yellow but not orange or red and much later than other maple trees are bare.

Where several of these trees are bunched together, they can provide a last burst of color in the later Fall. The shots below were made on November 11th, long ofter most other maple trees had lost their leaves, on the old Champlain Canal, North of the Village of Waterford, New York.

I particularly liked the strip of sky reflected in the water that follows the curve of the old tow path along the canal. I was carrying my EOS 5D Mark II with the EF 24-70mm f/2.8L USM lens.

These first two images are the normally exposed single files with the shadows lifted in Canon's Digital Photo Professional (DPP) as much as possible.

The next two images are three file images processed with DPP's High Dynamic Range tool. The files are bracketed +/-1 EV and the normally exposed file is the same RAW file which was processed for the images above. While the colors are more saturated and the shadow areas are brightened, the overall look is still mostly natural.

The last two images were made with the same RAW files as the two images above but processed with PhotoMatix Essentials, resulting in a less natural look.