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Orlando Eye
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Orlando Eye



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upload_dateJun, 2016

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3 Comments |
JDLifeshots
 
JDLifeshots July 29, 2016
Awesome capture! Congrats.
charleslerettephotography
charleslerettephotography July 29, 2016
Thanks.
jaysansan
 
jaysansan October 12, 2016
great shot!!!
florencekennedybulthuis Platinum
 
florencekennedybulthuis February 13, 2018
Just was on this! Loved it ! Great photo

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Behind The Lens

Location

I shot this photo of the Orlando Eye standing in a pasture across the road and had two horses nuzzling me for a while until they figured out I didn't have any treats for them.

Time

I hung around for about two hours just before sunset, waiting to see what was going to happen with the light. It was mostly clear when I got there but then some clouds rolled in just as the sun was going down. I shot for about 20 minutes during and after the sunset waiting for the ambient light to darken and the lights to come on and for the sun to do it's magic behind the clouds.

Lighting

The trick with twilight shots is catching that brief few minutes when the ambient light matches the artificial lights. A few minutes earlier the sun was still too bright behind the wheel and a few minutes later the lights on the building and the lamp in the foreground were too bright and the light in the sky was gone.

Equipment

I used a Sony a6000 on a tripod with a 16-50mm f/3.5 lens.

Inspiration

I'd been wanting to shoot a photo of the Orlando Eye for a while but didn't want to get the typical shot, which is typically taken from the opposite side. I also knew I wanted to shoot it at night with a dramatic sky. My original plan was to shoot a long exposure to show movement in the wheel but I wasn't really happy with the shots I was getting because they looked like the typical and cliche Ferris wheel photos, so ultimately, I decided on this shot showing all the detail in the wheel and the clouds.

Editing

I shot a 3-photo bracket to make sure I got as much dynamic range as possible, but I'm not a big fan of obvious HDR photos so I don't use any HDR apps. For this photo I used Lightroom to merge the images and adjusted the highlights and shadows and boosted the clarity and vibrance. I'm a big fan of HDR as a tool to help us get shots with detail in the shadows and highlights, which is hard to do in a single photo, but I process the final image to come close to what I actually saw and felt when I was there.

In my camera bag

I like to keep things as simple as possible so I rarely have more than two lenses in my bag. A 16-50mm f/3.5 and a 70-200mm f/2.8. I like zooms because I've got a huge range of focal lengths but only need to carry two lenses. And, of course, I never go anywhere without a tripod.

Feedback

I love shooting into the light which can be a challenge. Unless you're purposely shooting a silhouette you'll want to show detail in the shadows and that's hard to do in high contrast situations without blowing out the highlights. HDR bracketing makes that possible since you can combine an image that is metered for the highlights with one that is set to expose for the shadows. One big thing to watch for when you shoot into the sun or any bright light is lens flare so I usually make sure the source of the light is slightly obscured. In this case the sun was very near the horizon and behind the clouds.

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