It had to be a sunset!

I knew there was not going to be much of a sunset here in Reno tonight because of the cloud cover, so I took a drive east where the cloud cover was less thick. I ended up driving a little further than I wanted to, but I caught some sort of sunset this evening. This will be the last sunset for awhile, since we are suppose to have snow starting tonight and for the next week (or so they say). Hopefully, it will snow heavily in the mountains and help the drought conditions a bit.

When I got home, I was surprised to find my new tripod! Yeah! When I got it out, I was shocked at the difference from my old tripod - like night and day. My old tripod - a Dolica that I bought from Costco - was so rickety compared to this smooth, sleek Manfrotto. I purchased a Manfrotto carbon fiber tripod with a grip action head. And changing the head from right handed use to left handed use was fairly easy. It is a bit heavier that I wanted, but the action is so smooth. I can't wait to get out tomorrow and give it a try. The only negative thing was that the tripod bag I bought to go with it is way too small. So, it is already on its way back to B&H.

I bracketed five shots, and used HDR Efex to merge them. I had tried using Photoshop HDR merge, and also Photomatix HDR. But I liked HDR Efex best. I used the default selection, then overlayed Silver Efex layer with at 35% opacity over the photo. Please note that I did not change saturation on this shot. The sky was really that blue. My white balance setting was set to "cloudy", as well.

Thank you all so much for putting yesterday's Lake Tahoe in the spotlight! This is a third day in a row for me. I am astounded! But most of all thank you for the great comments and stars! I am deeply appreciative and honored!