Still having lots of fun - and still tinkering with HDR

The title says it all. I'm very impressed with my new camera - the Canon 450D. Even as a complete amateur I am able to turn out some very impressive (in my opinion) results. Night shots are crisp and the colours authentic without even having to do any post processing like I'd have to on my last camera - the Sony T7. I was also plagued by noise on just about any photo taken in low light conditions on my old camera BUT no more. The Canon 450D copes with night shots and low light quite spectacularly and way beyond my expectations. Being a ceomplete novice I am working my way throught the instruction manual and starting off with mastering the automatic functions before I move onto taking manual control. The automatic functions on this camera are amazingly intuitive in my opinion. Well worth every penny I spent on it so far.

View from the first floor of our house

Ok now I know the composition isn't great or anything but I was only testing the capability of the camera to reproduce something approaching realistic colours and lighting effects. Actually it was a very close match so I was well impressed.

I've still been tinkering about with HDR. Its improving but I would really like to find a scene that would lend itself well to HDR techniques. I'd also like a tripd to reduce the blurr though I wonder if (as an alternative) shooting in RAW form might help. Currently I'm using the AEB function and this takes 3 separate images which are later processed and merged in Photomatix. The problem is that its easy to get blur this way if your not using a tripd and things that are moving (like trees in the breeze) also turn out blurred. Shooting in RAW for you take only 1 image which you can process to give the 3 different exposures and thus cutting out the risk of blurr. I use an IS lens so blur tends to be a non-issue with single exposure photography.

Here is a HDR version of the same scene.