Downtown Blue Hour
A dramatic Blue Hour with a paradise of color.
A dramatic Blue Hour with a paradise of color.
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Jun, 2015Views
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Awards
Contest Finalist in Colors In The City Photo Contest 2019
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Contest Finalist in 500 Electric Shots Photo Contest
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Behind The Lens
Location
The capture was at downtown Jacksonville Florida South Bank River Walk. The St. John's River runs though downtown Jacksonville Florida and Jacksonville just finished redoing the old wooden plank river walk and replaced it with a new cement and tiled walkway along the rivers south bank side.Time
This was taken 06/06/2015 @ 19:59 pm sunset not till 20:26 and Blue Hour was not till 20:42 pm till 21:19, so not really the Blue Hour. But what happened is a big black cloud came in from the west at sunset basically blocking the sunset. I got a great sunset capture behind the Lone Sailor stature what I came for but this cloud rolled over the city blocking any sun light which turned on all the new lights installed along the landing, that I had no idea about, they just lit up in a lot of color and well I was blown away, I just walked back to my vehicle with my camera on the tripod setting up in different places along the way that inspired me and when the sky went blueish like I thought it was Blue Hour not looking at my watch. I mean I could see all the colors and tried to capture the best way I knew how.Lighting
The city adds colorful lighting to it's skyline and added colorful lights to the River Walk installed in the ground shining up to canvas covers over the benches for those waiting for the water taxis. The night lights of the different buildings, bridges and walkways are almost like a Disney effect when you just stand and look around and everyone walking/running at night kinda take it and accept it without notice! 5 bridges downtown all lit with different colors!Equipment
I just bought the Sony A7s the previous October and one of the only available lenses a 35 mm f/2.8 but in February they came out with the 16-35 mm and 24- 240 mm that I had saved for (I was just using my Canon T2i lenses and old Canon Ftb/AE1 film lenses). I was out checking the field of view of the two new lenses to see what lens would be good for the June super moon. I mainly like to do HDRI captures so I use a tripod like always but will process single images first before doing HDR with them. Plus a tripod or mono pod with three feet, people go to great pains not to get in your way. I use a Manfrotto tripod that is lightweight and was on sale for half price BUT is very versatile sets up and collapses fast and is tall.Inspiration
I had seen a newspaper photo of the new Lone Sailor Stature on the river walk. I was looking at my TPE app for moon rise direction and noticed sunset was going to be right behind the big buildings with the Lone Sailor statue in line and with my new 16 mm thought it could get all the skyline. When I was capturing the Lone Sailor stature all these lights came on that I had no idea were there, even under the stature. I was walking back to my truck where my wife was reading a book waiting for me but when you see all this color it can be over whelming and with a 16 mm on your camera you just can not help but capture it at every step and direction. I got 70 HDRI sets that night in about 40 minutes while my wife waited like she always watches me from a distance.Editing
Yes, I have about four different HDRI programs I use and process results in Lightroom and Nik Software. This I used a single image Post Processed in Capture One Pro (for Sony) and Lightroom then Nik Color Efex Pro (for contrast only). The light reflected off the metal was not clear in the HDR programs and also Capture One was able to clear up the clouds. HDR is not for everything! The hardest thing with captures at night in downtown Jacksonville is the lighting under the blue bridge (it is white but shines on blue but comes out pink with different temp selections) and getting the color right for the Wells Fargo building (if you use tungsten it comes out white), so a lot of slider play. I also do RAW and Jpeg, why- you pay for the programming in your camera, so I setup all the settings for a scene that you will do for a jpeg or camera auto and I will refer to it for color and clearness when doing noise control. Sometimes the in camera jpeg nails it, and the camera programmer earns his keep!In my camera bag
I have two bags. Canon T2i with a 10-22 mm (16-35) (most fun), 18-55 mm, 55-250 mm ( for moon with foregrounds) that I use a Promote Control for greater than +/- 2 ev captures and a A7s with 35 mm, 16- 35 mm, 24-240 mm, Rokinon 12 mm f/2.8 fish eye, Rokinon 14 mm f/2.8, Voigtlander 12 mm f/5.6 along with old canon film lenses from 22 mm to 300 mm with 2x and 4x adapters. Well three I still take my film gear with me, yes it is old but glass is fast but right film can get some awesome captures! Lastly I have a trailer that can be behind a bike or pulled by hand but do not carry all your gear just what is needed.Feedback
First for night shots be with others! Next learn how to capture HDRI not so much for HDR but for shutter play, Night shots require a lot of light and a 30 second (or more) shot will get it but also need to cover shadows so multi shots at different Shutter Speeds (different brightness's) and get a shutter speed chart so to learn the center shot for 2 ev's exp: 1st 2 seconds/middle 8 seconds/ last 30 seconds- learn to adjust ISO for a 8 second center shot as light intensity changes while in Aperture Mode. Remember noise reduction only goes to a raw file with a single image capture but is turned off when in bracket mode, the nice thing is when you import into Lightroom it will get rid of the hot pixels . Know your light, Blue Hour light temps 2800 -3800 in post or preset temp setting and Golden Hour temps before slider movement in all PP programs. But mostly play with the center shot as a single capture first before moving to HDR.
