Pentagon and Tank
In the spring of 2012 I ran a series from San Juan Island in Washington State. I have just spent another weekend visiting, and can feel a 2013 continuation of the series coming on. This building and tank are at the intersection of Spring Street and Marguerite Place in Friday Harbor.
The upper shot is the +2.0 E.V. image from a set of three brackets, the lower is an HDR processed version. Over all I prefer the top version for the regular feel of the whites which for me is mostly what this shot is about. However the HDR image is better of the tank; I like the detail, that great dent near the top really stands out as do the rivets. Also the chain link fence is better. But, the halo in the sky above the trees to the left, and the tank, along with the dirty feel to the front of the building are enough to push my preference away from this version.
So, I tried one more time – at the bottom is the 0 E.V. image tonemapped as a single image and then edited quite heavily in Lightroom. I think it is better than the middle image in many ways. None of them are perfect, but if I had to keep only one, I think it would be the bottom. Maybe I need to work on my HDR methods as I should be able to do better.
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Canon 5Dii, Nikkor-N 24/f2.8, ISO100, ~f-8.0, 1/500th +/- 2.0 E.V.
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burnt embers 
Thanks Ken. The last one is where I put the most work. Sometimes it pays off, but I find at others that the more I mess around, the less I like the shot. I really should show the colour version sometime. It works pretty well too, but is completely different in feel.
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I agree, the bottom image is my favorite also. I don’t like the HDR halos that appear in skies and other blank areas either. One technique I’ve done is to mask out the HDR sky with halo and bring back the sky from the non-HDR layer, giving the best of both. Your LR technique is pretty good, though.
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