High Dynamic Range

Today we tried out a new photography technique called "HDR" or "High Dynamic Range". We got up early and went out to Tempe town lake, Downtown Phoenix, and South Mountain. The great thing about HDR is that with the right camera (and special software) anyone can take really incredible pictures. Here are some of the pics I took:

Here are some Mike took:

Chris's camera is not quite designed to do this so he only got 2 good pics:

We also went down to the river bottom south of Sky Harbor to see if we could get some decent pics of the planes taking off (we didn't take any that were really interesting) but we caught and then released a small snake. Possibly a baby Sonora Semiannulata (we always called them Red Racers when I was little). Anyone know for sure what this is?