Cape Kiwanda

Recently I've seen some amazing pictures from Cape Kiwanda and decided to make a trip there myself, it's located near to Pacific City, OR around 2h drive from Portland. I was planning to get there for the sunset, unfortunately as it turned out in December the big haystack rock aligns almost perfectly with the setting sun and the rocks at Cape Kiwanda, so instead of nice soft light the rocks were mostly in the shade. Next time I'll plan to be there earlier to get some of the sun while it's still higher in the sky. And I'll definitely be back there because it's such an amazing and beautiful place. Additionally the sea was in a rough state with huge waves rolling in, I guess a residue from strong winds that hit Oregon coast few days ago.

I was experimenting with HDR for the first time and I'm quite happy with the result despite the lack of better sun conditions. All HDRs were made in Photoshop from 5 captures of -4/-2/0/2/4 EV.

Pentax HD Ltd. 20-40mm/2.8-4.0 @20mm f/8 8s ISO 100

Pentax HD Ltd. 20-40mm/2.8-4.0 @20mm f/8 4s ISO 100

Pentax HD Ltd. 20-40mm/2.8-4.0 @27mm f/8 13s ISO 100

Pentax HD Ltd. 20-40mm/2.8-4.0 @20mm f/8 2.5s ISO 100

Pentax HD Ltd. 20-40mm/2.8-4.0 @20mm f/8 10s ISO 100

The waves got quite high (I think approx. 20ft), especially when they collided with another wave that was coming back from hitting the rocks.

Pentax HD Ltd. 20-40mm/2.8-4.0 @27mm f/8 1/20s ISO 1600

By the time I finished the sea callmed a little but every now and then you could still see large waves forming, overall the ocean that way was just magnificent.

Pentax HD Ltd. 20-40mm/2.8-4.0 @20mm f/8 15s ISO 100

It was my first time creating HDR images, let me know what you think in the comments I hope I didn't over process them.