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This stormy view was photographed from the path I was hiking on Moel Siabod, in Snowdonia, North Wales.
I'd spent most of the day climbing and photographing on this rather attractive mountain and was heading back down to my car when a shaft of sunlight pierced the gathering gloom and spotlit this snowy peak on the far side of Llyn Mymbry.
The rest of the landscape was in shadow and this beautifully shaped and patterned summit shone like a jewel against the dark cloth of the cloud laden sky.
It's at times like this that it pays to know your how your camera equipment goes together, and where all the controls are without even looking, as this light only lasted a few seconds before the patch of sunlight had moved on and left this scene in uniform shadow.
I was worried about overexposing the snowy details on the peak, so I took two exposures, one at the 'correct' setting according to the camera's matrix metering, and another a stop or so underexposed to make sure I got the snow right.
These two exposures were blended manually in Photoshop using layers and masks before I did my usual enhancement workflow and I'm rather pleased with the result.
A great final image from a hugely enjoyable day in Snowdonia.
Filename - mountain 04.jpg
Camera - Canon 5D
Lens - 24-105mm zoom @55mm
Exposure - 1/40sec @ f11, ISO100
Location - Cambrian Range, Snowdonia
This image - 800x533px JPEG
Conversion - ACR & PS-CS2
Comments - Two exposures used to preserve highlight details.
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