Bangkok by night from Lebua Hotel
Dec, 2017Views
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Behind The Lens
Location
The photo was taken from the terrace of the Lebua Hotel in Bangkog. A terrace with a wonderful view of the city.Time
I remember that after dinner at the Mezzaluna Restaurant on the top of the hotel, I went to the terrace around 1am to enjoy the view and have a drink. I had no kickstand with mke but I found bad luck to immortalize the city. A special feature (and not frequent) is the fully illuminated highway that crosses the city creeping into the middle of skyscrapers and houses.Lighting
The lighting is absolutely natural with a long shutter speed and a fairly closed aperture in order to have the right exposure and definition of the strongest light sourcesEquipment
To make this shot I used my Nikon D850 equipped with Nikkor 14-24 on a 24mm focal length. Aperture f10 and exposure time of 30 seconds. I did not have a tripod with me and I used the balustrade of the terrace as a base to replace the tripod. I held the SLR manually by activating the self-timer in order to remove every vibration. I used iso400 because a lower sensitivity (certainly more correct) would have forced me to even longer times. Long times that would increase the risk of photo blur. In fact, I held the car with my hands, not having the stand with meInspiration
The inspiration in making this shot was born mainly (in addition to the beautiful lights and billboards) from the presence of the illuminated highway that borders the houses of the city. It is not usual on our continent that a highway creeps in the middle of the houses and it is not even for the presence of such strong lighting.Editing
After developing the RAW file by slightly lightening the strongest shadows, I softened the details with Dfine of Color effex a bit. No other manipulation has been made.In my camera bag
In my bag are always present my two Nikon (D5 and D850) and pè always present the "triad" Nikon composed by 14-24; 24-70 and 70-200 (all f2.8). Normally I bring with me the 105 macro and the 85 f1,4. Other goals I take with me only for specific uses for particular shots.Feedback
There are no practical tips for a photo at night if not to use fairly closed diaphragms that better define the light points and often also create (on points more points) the nice star effect. One piece of advice is definitely to shoot NOW. Do not wait for a different moment, thinking that the night is long. Even the lights of the night and the sky (in addition to the artificial ones) change considerably and so ...... if something hits you: do not wait! Do not wait because after a few minutes it may not be the same thing anymore. In this case if I had taken the photo 10 minutes before I also had the billboard advertising IphoneX, lit!
