http://www.flickr.com/photos/amwbonfire/8062149671/
I took a quick snapshot of St Kilda Pier in Melbourne a few days back, exposing for the sun which completely ruined the foreground (it was completely black). I didn’t bother taking another shot because I couldn’t be bothered doing a HDR image. When I got home and saw the image on the computer I was about to hit delete when it struck me to at least play with it first in lightroom. I increased the brightness of the shadow areas and was able to pull the incredible detail out that you see above.

I’m seriously blown away by how impressive my camera and lightroom are! I’ve also included a 100% crop so you can see how little noise there is in the image. I could use the noise removal tool in lightroom to drop it down but I honestly don’t see the need to.

Before and After:

100% Crop (click for full size):