A quick, refreshing trip this weekend to the Oregon Coast, where we hiked the long loop trail at Cape Perpetua, watched the waves break in the cloudy gloom and had halibut at Mo’s.

A cold foggy morning in the woods.

This photo might be at the weirder end of the spectrum.

My only complaint is that, as near as I can tell, you can’t use a self-timer for your HDR shots. That means a little shutter jiggle for landscapes (OK, Pentax wants you to buy an electronic remote, I get it) and an outstretched arm for self portraits.

HDR photography has been badly abused, as you can see in terrible examples all over the web. But used correctly it can make photographs of great depth and subtlety. The Pentax in-camera photos turn out surprisingly good; the only catch is, you really need to use a tripod, as the camera takes three separate exposures and combines them.

The result, as you can see here, is a shot that offers something like the full dynamic range of traditional black and white film. It’s a lovely look and one I’ll be playing with more, clearly. The newest Pentax in the line-up, the newly announced K5, apparently manages to merge the three files cleanly even if you don’t use a tripod, which would make things ever so much easier.

Some law requires logging companies to leave a few seedling trees here and there when they cut down the forest in Oregon. They look like sad sentinels, head and shoulders above the replanted monoculture landscape.

Photo: Seedling tree, digital black and white, 2010