Almost every Thanksgiving, I visit my family in California. I was able to spend a few days with my brother and sister-in-law, and we packed those days with a number of activities. We spent a few hours hiking the Sam Merrill Trail to Echo Mountain. It was a tough hike for me — a reminder that I could use more exercise.
The weather was beautiful, however, and the views were amazing. I brought a small contingent of my photography equipment with me on the hike, including my Canon Digital Rebel XTi and two lenses: the 17-85mm and 70-300mm. I used only the shorter zoom, leaving the longer telephoto in my backpack for the entire duration of the hike.
My brother brought his new iPhone. The phone contains an amazing little camera that automatically combines three exposures to create an HDR image. The result is quite interesting, and someone could have a lot of fun with that feature.
I added the three best photos to Flickr, but I’ll include all three here as well, after the jump.