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GordonKoh

Blue Hour Shenton Skyline

SONY ILCE-7M2

settings

Aperture f/18 ISO 100 Shutter 30/1 Focal Length 160/10

upload_date

Mar, 2016

Views

678

Likes

+37

Awards

Winner in City at night Photo Challenge

Peer Award

Superb Composition

Absolute Masterpiece

Magnificent Capture

Top Choice

Outstanding Creativity

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Behind The Lens

Location

I live in Singapore, one of the smallest country in the world. It is a highly built-up city with no mountains nor opportunities for gorgeous landscape photography. What this country has is one of the most amazing urban skyline, which can be viewed from various locations in the city. This shot was taken from the Esplanade area, a popular location for both tourists and residents alike. It was taken at ground level along the crowded walkway by the riverfront, near to the entrance of the Jubilee Bridge.

Time

This photo ranks among my top favorites. It was taken at evening time after office hours. This would be the best moment to capture the vibrancy of this city with bright and colorful night scene.

Lighting

The skyline is most gorgeous during sunrise or sunset moments, blue hour as well as dusk and dawn periods. I headed down to this location for the shoot with the sunset sky in the background. You can view photos of this skyline at golden hours on my Viewbug page. For this particular shot, I waited until it was about the moment from dusk to blue hour so as to capture a grayish blue sky for a special mood. The color of the sky in this shot was intentionally captured to complement well with the warm lights emitted from the buildings and streets. This skyline is also beautiful at dawn, and I do have photos of this skyline posted in Viewbug as well, please check them and make comparisons.

Equipment

Given that it was a long exposure shot, a tripod was necessary. As the sky was getting dark, no filter was necessary. I shot this with a full frame mirrorless Sony A7ii with a 16-35mm lens.

Inspiration

As I've mentioned earlier, given that Singapore is a dense concrete jungle, I was motivated to capture a shot that would be a good representation of the characteristic of a modern city. This shot was taken in the evening to capture the bright street lights and lighted buildings that exude vibrancy of this city.

Editing

For a shot taken of a night scene, some post-editing is usually needed. For this photo, I had to do bring out the details in the shadow, and also tone down the brightness in some areas. Saturation was slightly adjusted to enhance the vibrancy.

In my camera bag

As a fan of cityscape photography, my most important lens is the Sony 16-35mm lens. This lens affords the wide angle coverage for most of the time. However, I also have a 14mm Rokinon lens for some tight situations, and as a final backup, I also carry a Rokinon 12mm fisheye lens in my bag. This is my trio of lens for cityscape and architectural photography. Sometimes I would also pack in a 90mm macro lens if I plan to shoot flowers or other objects at close distance. Occasionally I would carry with me a 28-240mm Sony lens if I have the intention to shoot some wildlife (which is limited in this city).

Feedback

For nightscape photography, a tripod is absolutely essential. One factor to consider is whether you want to include people in your shot. If you want to capture people as part of the composition, shooting at faster shutter speed would be necessary. But if people were to be excluded from the shot, long exposure time (30 seconds should work well if there is regular people movement) would be necessary to remove any trace of moving persons.Try experimenting with a few shutter speed settings. Also remember to keep the the noise level low so an aperture of f4 to f11 should be a good starting point in combination with a low ISO setting, depending on the performance of your camera. Happy shooting.

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GordonKoh

GordonKoh

Blue Hour Shenton Skyline

Behind The Lens

See more amazing photos, follow GordonKoh

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