Quote Originally Posted by daq7
The second manipulation is very nice. But fiddling with ND gradients in lieu of just doing PP work is, in my opinion the definition of perverse.
I fully and respectfully disagree. I can visualize (usually) with ND's and can see when I make my exposure what I'm trying to get. For me there is no"fiddling". Trying to "make it work" in post is what I want to avoid, making it work in post is "fiddling" to me. My view is make the best image possible in camera and do small fine tuning in post. I see it as a couple of minutes with a filter vs too much time (for me at least) in front of my laptop. I want to be out seeing and making images as opposed to driving a computer. It's my background I guess.
These are far from perfect, and I strongly suspect they would have been even worse if I had simply set up and shot with a naked lens. The blown highlights would be even worse. If I recall the sky in these was at least a 4-6 stop variation over the foreground of black sand, right at the edge of the latitude of the sensor.