This is a composite of two bracketed shots. HDR, usually is more effective with three or more exposures. I only used two exposures because when I added more than three, I was having problems with the shaded area around the tree's trunk.

 

I had to shoot this tree a couple of times at different parts of the day until I got the lighting that I wanted. These two shots were shot in the early morning in calm, still, and clear weather.. I added the fog using a white to transparent gradient in a single layer then shifted it down until the gradient was in the correct position. I then used a very soft-edged brush at a low opacity and painted dots on a layer mask.

 

14 mm wide angle prime lens with a 2x teleconverter,

1/6 sec-1/20 sec,

f/16, ISO 200,

Evaluative metering,

Aperture Priority on a tripod