Over the weekend I second shot at a wedding in Hood River, Oregon. It was @ a winery on the hillside over looking the Colombia River Gorge and had a fantastic view of Mt. Hood. I typically never do HDR and havn't ever had a successful shot so this seemed pretty decent to me. I took this shot @ (I would estimate) 9:30pm or so and it was pretty much pitch black outside. I did the first exposure for 3 seconds which was lit for the trees and grass areas, the second for .8 seconds which exposed the crowd/dancers, and the last was for 14 seconds which exposed for the sky and the mountain. I did white balance correction in Aperture, then in photoshop combined all three photos and used masks to incorporate the best exposed photo for different parts of the overall image.
Please ignore that this was for a wedding as I did this more for myself, though I gave the jpg shot to the first shooter (my boss) to include with his photos for the client.
Any ways you might do this shot different? Since I typically don't do HDR I'm not really sure if there is a better way to combine the photos? Any other ideas are greatly appreciated
Used a Canon Rebel iso 200 with a 24mm f1.4 prime lens, at F 1.4 (which I wish I did differently)