I, the DSRL dummy: HDR for high contrast situations

Most of the time, I get to a very nice place in the wrong moment; say, the day before yesterday I went for a walk in downtown Singapore and when I found Fort Canning's navigation beacon the sky was filled with clouds and the sun was just behind the light house. At that point I knew that any picture I tried to take will be crappy:

Fig. 1: Forth Canning Light (f/7.1, 1/500s, ISO 100, 20mm, no processing).

As you can see there's lot of over- and under-exposed sections and I should just delete the image as my developing skills will surely make it worse than it already is. 

High Dynamic Range to the rescue. I was trying to figure out a way to shoot the picture without a gradient neutral density filter when my tripod fell to the groud. Wait! Why do not take advantage of the new dent in the tripod and try to shoot a HDR image to try and make a better picture? As my grandmother says: You cannot have everything in life, I was waiting for the sky to part a little and get some blue sky on the composition but my patience was just 20min. long and this is what I got:

Fig. 2: Forth Canning, ±2eV in 5 steps, Software: Luminance, Algorithm:Mantiuk'06.  

As you can see, the composition of under- and over-exposed frames allows for a still which is better than the one before; for instance, you can actually see all the elements in the image. The settings for this HDR still frame are Mantiuk '06 algorithm with Luminance HDR CF:0.3, SF: 2.0, DF:15. 

I tried all the algorithms that come with Luminance HDR and Mantiuk '06 was the one that suited my eye the most in this situation. I tried going bananas and creating a higher contrast image and this alien-looking thing came out with everything maxed up (CF:1, SF:2, DF:99):

Fig. 3: Same as above different algorithm's parameters.

In the end, I am happy the new dent in my tripod led to an idea that ultimately worked out for me this time but I think I will try to get a set of graduated neutral density filters as well.

Pros: Able to shoot a balanced clear sky picture.
Con: Need to shoot at least 3 frames to cover the contrast range.

Happy Shooting!