Candescent Critter Country

The scene below is a photo that I would normally take in two or three exposure and then blend together to maintain some detail in the highlights while also exposing the shadows well enough to render them with nice clarity and give the scene an all-around luminous appearance.  But for whatever reason--whether through laziness, lack of time, or perhaps I did take multiple exposures but lost them when my computer's hard drive conked out on me a few years ago--I only took one exposure.  It was long enough to get a reasonably bright and still crisp photo with minimal noise, but the lights in this photo end up too bright, because they are completely white rather than the actual gradations of almost white they are in real life.  

Still, for a single exposure, I feel like this photo turned out pretty well and detailed.  This is actually probably clearer than the human eye can perceive in person at night, which makes me feel like long exposures like these provide a glimpse into what sight must be like for night predators like owls!

A placid scene from Critter Country.