Chaos Crags from Reflection Lake

Reflection Lake, Lassen Volcanic National Park, California, July 15, 2007

With film, this shot would have been impossible without using a special filter (split neutral density). Otherwise either the lake would be dark or the mountain blown out. Unlike color film, digital SLR cameras have such a huge dynamic range that it is often possible to capture the whole scene at once. A couple of minutes in photoshop are all that are required to compress the scence into a tonal range the computer can display in a realistic fashion.