OK, DirtFarmer, some interesting input. However, for those of us not accustomed to thinking in these terms, how does one go about taking a 2000x3000 pixel image and reducing it to 1000x1500 pixels "by adding pixels together in groups of 4?" Is the process used by a particular tool in Photoshop (without calling it that)? Or is it a set of procedures one must follow?

I shoot with a Canon 6D, and have used its HDR capability with pretty decent success, even hand-held. Only thing I regret is that, unlike the 5D IV, the 6D can only do this in JPEG mode. As for giving an HDR treatment to a single RAW image in post processing, I've historically heard more negative than positive reactions. However, it appears that some of you are getting pretty good results that way, so I might give it a try. Strikes me that getting that right would need to begin with the exposure, where for most shots I'm guessing you would want the histogram to spill off the two ends of the spectrum to a roughly equal degree. Am I right about that?

I couldn't agree more! My daughter is 22, and only within the last year did she express enough interest to warrant buying her her first DSLR. She likes it and uses it pretty regularly, and is getting more savvy each day. But the groundwork for that was laid, in part, through her use of her cellphone cameras. It's an evolutionary process, just as it was for us old-timers.

No question, cellphone cameras have improved dramatically (though I'm not sure I'm falling for all of the latest gimmicks). From my perspective, my camera phone simply broadens the range of images I can get, since it's impossible for me to carry my DSLR virtually everywhere I go. That said, there's no escaping that the tiny size of the cellphone camera sensor is a limiting factor when it comes to doing sizable enlargements. It certainly doesn't stop me from taking shots that I would have preferred using my DSLR for when it just isn't handy, but I do so recognizing that I'll be more limited in what I can do with the image.

Good case in point involved my daughter, who has her first DSLR, now, and has some real native talent. She generally takes it on hikes, but in one case she left it behind because of the difficulty of the hike (worried about whether she could manage her camera bag, etc.). She then got a really excellent landscape image with her cellphone, and later regretted not having brought the camera. I did some processing on the image as best I could, but could only accomplish so much. Lesson learned.

Some very interesting comments here. I've always figured that the eye's large dynamic range is something of a misnomer in that it's due to the fact that your eyes can only focus on one particular spot at a time, together with the pupil's natural ability to open and close accordingly. I've tried focusing my eyes on a particularly bright or dark spot in a scene and then taking note of how the rest of the scene appears in my peripheral vision, and found what appears to be some of the same kind of clipping that happens to parts of the scene that are outside the camera's dynamic range. We just don't normally notice that with our eyes because we tend to pay attention to only what we're focused on. The camera, on the other hand, has to capture the entire scene at once. There is no opportunity for it to adjust the exposure simultaneously for all parts of the scene.

Hi Michael - welcome aboard! Just a couple rudimentary thoughts/questions. First, the only setting you didn't mention in your description was in some ways the most obvious - your shutter speed. Second, a couple of things become more critical when you're shooting at the likes of 640 mm, both have to do with the magnification factor that's going on. One is - again - shutter speed. The camera is more sensitive to tinier movements of itself, and even the subject at that kind of telephoto range. In my opinion, a tripod is inescapable unless you're the calmest person on the planet. Also, keep in mind that your depth of field (which your aperture setting controls) shrinks accordingly as you zoom in because you are, in a manner of speaking, compressing the entire distance from camera to subject. Thus, a modest aperture setting may result in a way narrower DOF, causing areas to be out of focus that you're not anticipating. Anyway, I suspect things like this are more likely the culprits than the equipment - though one can never entirely rule that out, especially with rented stuff. Hope that helps.

If your ISO changed "on its own," I can't help but think you have the auto ISO set. Together with that, I suspect that your point of focus (and with it, the spot from which your camera took its meter reading) may have shifted slightly from image to image. If, for example, you took your reading from the swan, it would be properly exposed and the background would be considerably darker. If you read from the background, the reverse would happen. This could be the case especially if your camera is set to spot metering, rather than "averaging."

I might add that, with the Antelope tours, once you reach the end, they allow you to drift back through the canyon for photography purposes, and you can linger there as long as you like.

Actually, it's not entirely true that you can't access Navaho canyons except by guided tour. There is one I know of called (as I recall) "No Holes Canyon." You need to get an inexpensive permit from the Navaho tribal office, which isn't far from the Antelope canyons. You then park along the road at the north end of a bridge over the canyon that you cross as you near Page from the south. You scramble down about a 50-ft embankment (not hard) to enter the canyon, and from there you can walk as far as you like. It's less enclosed than the Antelope canyons but just as visually fascinating.

As for the "guided tour only" canyons, the only one I recall was a canyon the access to which was the exclusive province of a tour outfit that used Hummers to get back in there. Not terribly expensive, but also not all that much to look at, in my opinion. Plus, you don't have the freedom to wander or dwell in a spot for photographic purposes.

You might take a look and see if you can find the immediate previous model. You should be able to get it for a nice bargain price, and in my opinion, most of us would be hard put to discern the difference between that model and the current/new one (which came out a year or so ago).

I couldn't agree more about Canon's 24-105. Nice focal range, superb images, I'm finding that I'm switching lenses less and less.

I just placed a gift order for my daughter (who's just getting started and likes to shoot when she goes hiking) for the print edition a couple weeks ago, and it seemed to go fine.

This reminds me of a question I'd like to hear everyone's input on: Have you ever tried spinning a single raw image out into several exposures in Lightroom or Photoshop, and then processing them as an HDR image? I've not tried it, myself, and have heard mixed reviews.

I'm inclined to agree with jackm1943. Bracketing gives me the option of HDR processing or choosing among the images for single-image processing. I often find that I can recover sufficient detail in one of them to render HDR unnecessary. Not to mention that, particularly at the low end, some clipping isn't necessarily a bad thing, depending on where it is. That, together with the greater dynamic range capability of modern SLR's and the fact that you can recover detail more readily at the high end gives lots of latitude.

I should add that shutter speed is not a factor - unless you're shooting a scene with movement in it. But then, that's an issue of its own....