We got a late start on our first hike in Acadia National Park this last visit, and by the time I got to The Bowl, a little pond on the trail from Gorham Mountain to Champlain, the light was rapidly going. I am not as fast on the trail, up over Gorham, down into the divide between, and up behind the Beehive to The Bowl, as I once was. Clouds had rolled in and rain was predicted by night-fall. Still, The Bowl never fails to satisfy. The subtle light, while it posed real exposure problems…a matter of somehow maintaining detail in both sky and landscape…gave a wonderful texture to the water.

For the image above I used all the help the camera provides: Active D-Lighting to extend the dynamic range when taking the image, and then in-camera post-processing using D-Lighting after the fact to bring up greens of the foliage even more. I finished it in Lightroom with some Fill Light and Blackpoint adjustment.

Nikon Coolpix P500 at 23mm equivalent field of view, f4.5 @ 1/1000th @ ISO 160.

And I had to try a panorama. This is four 23mm frames stitched in PhotoMerge in PhotoShop Elements 9, and processed for Clarity, Sharpness, and lighting in Lightroom. It is about 270° so the right most shot was behind my right shoulder when I took the left most shot. It looks better at larger sizes. Click the image to open it to the width of your monitor.