1001 nights
I spent the whole afternoon at one of Dubai’s most attractive recent developments, Madinat Jumeirah - a luxurious 5 star hotel in Dubai and the largest resort...
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I spent the whole afternoon at one of Dubai’s most attractive recent developments, Madinat Jumeirah - a luxurious 5 star hotel in Dubai and the largest resort in the Emirates. It is set across its own private beach and is a contemporary representation of ancient Arabia, complete with a palm-fringed waterways, desert-colored hotels and villas decorated with wind towers. It is especially mesmerizing in the evening when the gardens and the ground get lit and you can see the beautiful Burj Al Arab glowing in the background. Madinat Jumeirah comprises two boutique hotels (Al Qasr and Mina A’Salam) and a courtyard of 29 summer houses called Dar Al Masyaf. The resort has over 40 restaurants and bars. It is simply stunning!
After shooting the glorious sunset, I was planning to go inside the beach of Al Qasr Hotel that offered a great view of the Burj Al Arab, which I intended to shoot in the first place. On the way there, just after the blue hour, I came across this great composition of the traditional Arab looking center and striking Burj in the back. Needless to say, I had to be very cautious because of the guards, so I placed my tripod quickly and mounted my Nikon D810 with a wide angle lens (16-35mm) at f11 and iso 160 in order to bracket all the files I needed. Additionally, I also did one long exposure shot for the water with a 6 stop filter so as to be able to maintain the smoothness of the reflection. I was extremely happy with the composition I chose and the photographs came out grand!
In terms of the technical part, it was quite difficult to blend all the images, considering that too many lights were coming from the bars around the mall. The luminosity mask helped for some specific parts yet not with everything…Hence the reason, I had to combine various selection techniques to maintain the balance between the lights and shadows.
I blended 5 different exposures, 4 bracketed shots for the base of the image and one for the reflections with a 6 stop ND filter. Later on, I applied some Orton effects to smoothen the transition from the lights and played with Color Effex pro. Finally, selective sharpening was used and noise reduction in order to remove the little noise created by the iso 160.
Without a doubt, one of my favorite views of Dubai, due to its extraordinary representation of the old and the new parts of the city! smile emoticon
Hope you like it
Read less
After shooting the glorious sunset, I was planning to go inside the beach of Al Qasr Hotel that offered a great view of the Burj Al Arab, which I intended to shoot in the first place. On the way there, just after the blue hour, I came across this great composition of the traditional Arab looking center and striking Burj in the back. Needless to say, I had to be very cautious because of the guards, so I placed my tripod quickly and mounted my Nikon D810 with a wide angle lens (16-35mm) at f11 and iso 160 in order to bracket all the files I needed. Additionally, I also did one long exposure shot for the water with a 6 stop filter so as to be able to maintain the smoothness of the reflection. I was extremely happy with the composition I chose and the photographs came out grand!
In terms of the technical part, it was quite difficult to blend all the images, considering that too many lights were coming from the bars around the mall. The luminosity mask helped for some specific parts yet not with everything…Hence the reason, I had to combine various selection techniques to maintain the balance between the lights and shadows.
I blended 5 different exposures, 4 bracketed shots for the base of the image and one for the reflections with a 6 stop ND filter. Later on, I applied some Orton effects to smoothen the transition from the lights and played with Color Effex pro. Finally, selective sharpening was used and noise reduction in order to remove the little noise created by the iso 160.
Without a doubt, one of my favorite views of Dubai, due to its extraordinary representation of the old and the new parts of the city! smile emoticon
Hope you like it
Read less
May, 2015Views
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