Tall Ship HDR

Whew, this personal commitment to post a picture every day has me scrambling to find and develop pictures I've taken in the past since I don't seem to be getting out and shooting much these days. Laziness, mainly. I need to challenge myself to at least go for a walk in the evening just around where I live and see what I can find.

Anyway, this picture was taken on June 30, 2008 in Victoria, B.C. There were some tall ships that had been in and were departing. This one was still sitting here so I took three shots at three different exposures which can be great for HDR photos. I merged them to HDR in Photoshop, did the minor Photoshop thing by converting to 16 bit exposure, but then used Topaz adjust to really get what I was after. This is the result. The photo composure could be better because the ship sits smack in the middle of the frame, but cropping away the left would mean losing the mast and I'd rather have that.

Specs: Canon 30D, 70-200 lens @ 89mm, f11 and three exposures with the base exposure at 1/200, and then 1 1/3 stops faster at 1/80 and 1 1/3 stops slower at 1/500. I know, it sounds backwards but I think I have it right. You get faster by opening up the aperture (ie. f11 to f8) or leaving the shutter open longer which means a slower shutter speed allowing more light in thus making it a faster exposure. I'm not sure if this is right terminology for shutter speeds but I know it is for aperture. A f1.4 lens is faster than a f4 lens. Any questions?