yenaingwynn

Bagan sunrise

Bagan is an ancient city of Myanmar and a popular tourist destination in recent years populated with hundreds of buddhist temples and ruins dated back to around...
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Bagan is an ancient city of Myanmar and a popular tourist destination in recent years populated with hundreds of buddhist temples and ruins dated back to around 11-12th centuries. I took this picture in the morning during sunrise from a small temple with a backdrop of the balloons. This temple is not a usual tourist place and not crowded. There were just about 3-4 other tourists at the place on that morning.
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SONY NEX-7

settings

Aperture f/8 ISO 100 Shutter 1/160 Focal Length 20/1

upload_date

May, 2016

Views

1613

Likes

+463

Awards

Contest Finalist in The Sunlight Photo Contest

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Peer Award

+139

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+43

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+19

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Magnificent Capture

All Star

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Genius

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Behind The Lens

Location

This is Bagan, Myanmar. Bagan is an ancient city of Myanmar and a popular tourist destination in recent years populated with hundreds of buddhist temples and ruins dated back to around 11-12th centuries. I took this picture a few years ago, in the morning during sunrise from a small temple with a backdrop of the balloons. This temple is not a usual tourist place and not crowded. There were just about 3-4 other tourists at the place on that morning. Just recently in August 2016, a strong 6.8 earthquake hit the area and more than 100 of Bagan temples were damaged or collapsed. It's a very tragic event and nothing can replace the 1000 years old ruined structures.

Time

It was a sunrise shot around 7:00am in the morning. I had to get up around 5:30 to get to the spot early enough to secure the place for my tripod because this temple's platform is so tiny and not more than 5 photographers can line up to that direction on it. Luckily, this place is less known to tourists and I managed to get a good spot on that morning.

Lighting

I have been there a few times before and after this particular shot. This was my favourite one because of the type of clouds and warmth of the sun I got. It depends a lot on the time of the year. Best time, in my opinion, is around December and January where the weather is cool enough to create some mists in the morning and sky has some dramatic clouds on your lucky day. March-May is too dry and hot and sky will be empty and sunlight too strong and glaring.

Equipment

It was taken with my first interchangeable lens camera, soon after I started taking more serious photos in 2013. It's Sony Nex7 with E18-200mm Sony zoom lens. I used Manfrotto tripods. I almost always use tripod and remote control to take sunset & sunrise photos and take at least 3 bracketed shots. These shots are analysed later and decide the post processing method.

Inspiration

Bagan is always on top of my list when I think of traveling in my home country, Myanmar. It's an amazing place and never will be tired of going there. Not just a place with thousands of religious statues but also many other locations and local lifestyles can be explored for photography. I've been there many times, I still look forward to visit there at least once a year to try on the different angle, location, perspective etc.

Editing

I love post-processing. I like to create dramatic landscapes but still try to avoid too extreme processing. This photo was taken as 3 bracketed shots in RAW and used HDR processing along the way. Although it was taken in 2014, this latest one uploaded was re-processed in 2016. I started with Lightroom to adjust the WB a little bit and reduce some noise before exporting to Aurora HDR for tone mapping. After I got a satisfactory look in Aurora, some further enhancement and tweaking were done in Adobe Photoshop CS. I removed some ugly light posts and did some dodging and burning to enhance the picture. Finally, it's imported back to Lightroom and did some cropping and alignment.

In my camera bag

When I'm on a photography oriented travel, I use a medium size Lowepro backpack. Inside, I have 2 camera bodies, Sony A7R Mk2 and Sony A7S. A7R Mk2 is mainly used for landscapes and panoramas intended for large prints and A7S is for street photos, night photos and videos. My main lens are Sony/Zeiss FE 4/16-35 wide-angle, Sony G Master FE 2.8/24-70, Sony/Zeiss FE 1.8/55 prime and a telephoto Sony A-mount 2.8/70-200 G SSM II with an adaptor to fit on my A7 cameras. I also carry a HOYA variable ND filter and an infrared remote control. There are at least 3-4 extra batteries, 2-3 SD cards, battery charger, external hard drive, a rain cover, Macbook Pro and cleaning kit in the bag too. I also carry a Gitzo carbon fibre tripod with ball-head. If I'm on a more relaxed traveling with family, just one camera body fitted with 24-70 lens will do for me.

Feedback

Just make a plan to visit Bagan as early as you can before it gets too crowded with tons of tourists like what happened to those popular places around the world. Best time is between Nov and Feb and spend a least 1 week there. Spend a couple of days to explore the area and find the best vantage points for sunrise and sunset. They'll be at different places. After this recent earthquake and damage to the temples, the rules for climbing up on the temples may be changed. I'm still waiting for the announcement of new rules for this area.

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yenaingwynn

Bagan sunrise

Bagan is an ancient city of Myanmar and a popular tourist destination in recent years populated with hundreds of buddhist temples and ruins dated back to around... Read more

Behind The Lens

See more amazing photos, follow yenaingwynn

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Bagan is an ancient city of Myanmar and a popular tourist destination in recent years populated with hundreds of buddhist temples and ruins dated back to around...
Read more

Share photos. Enter contests to win great prizes.
Earn coins, get amazing rewards. Join for free.