27 Dec 2008 Morning

[David Kwok]

Morning taken from my home.


If you would like to view in details, I recommend you view the original from http://www.flickr.com/photos/davidktw/3140353172/

Thanks for viewing

[giantcanopy]

Hi David. I must say u r very lucky to have such a nice sunrise view from your house.

Very sharply focused and clean shot.

A few nits -

The buildings look much brighter from their bases I am not too sure if this was ur intended effect, and there is a distracting red at the centre which extends all the way to change the colors of the trees at the bottom - on the first instance doesn look like lens flare or was the flare exaggerated as a result of processing

I might just crop the excess space at the bottom for a tighter composition.

Ryan

[vansyahrul]

nice one bro

[raghnall]

WOW!!! What a amazing sunset you got!! Awesome!!

Did you happen to use a ND grad filter? As Ryan has mentioned, the base of the buildings look somewhat brighter..

[Curare]

Processed using HDR? Looks nice. And what a view you have!

[shadowvx]

staying somewhere in toa payoh?

[gymak90]

Nice capture! The early bird gets the prize

Is the red patch real? Or enhanced etc...?

[David Kwok]

Originally Posted by raghnall WOW!!! What a amazing sunset you got!! Awesome!! Did you happen to use a ND grad filter? As Ryan has mentioned, the base of the buildings look somewhat brighter..

That's not due to Grad ND filter No filter used, just pure HDR The building and blacken because I wanted that effect

[David Kwok]

Originally Posted by gymak90 Nice capture! The early bird gets the prize Is the red patch real? Or enhanced etc...?

I didn't sleep, so it's not too early for me.
The red patch is real, in fact, it has affected a much wider area than just that area, but I cut down on the red channel to minimize it. It's due to the bright sun shining soo brightly that the red patch is formed.

[gossipmonger]

even tho' i'm no fan of HDR, i must admit that it's a nice photo.... fantastic view though!

I'm guessing you're staying in the telok blangah/bkt purmei/henderson/depot road area??

[night86mare]

i find a panoramic crop more suitable here, either chop off the trees or part of the sky is good

not a bad composition, the trouble lies with the color palette. while i think it's alright to well, get more cool tones during the golden hours, i have certainly never ever seen a greenish sky during sunrise, unless maybe you were at chernobyl.

the rest of it, others have mentioned, the hierarchy of light problem.

[hazmee]

I think you should have shot this a little earlier before the sun is up. Shooting against the sun is a tough call when you have buildings on the horizon. The stark difference in exposure makes it even harder to balance the light. All you will get is unnatural shadows and highlights. I would have gone for a silhoutte shot for this. Anyway, do give my suggestion a try and let me know if it works for you.

[David Kwok]

Originally Posted by hazmee I think you should have shot this a little earlier before the sun is up. Shooting against the sun is a tough call when you have buildings on the horizon. The stark difference in exposure makes it even harder to balance the light. All you will get is unnatural shadows and highlights. I would have gone for a silhoutte shot for this. Anyway, do give my suggestion a try and let me know if it works for you.

Seriously given the situation, there seems to be only 2 options available if it will to be done using a single shot, either a nice sky scenery and black buildings or nice buildings with blown out sky or at least an afternoon looking sky.

I do have single shots that gives buildings silhouette, but I tend to not prefer that, at least not with what I'm trying to produce.

I'm not exactly trying to replicate what I can see, but rather trying to have a scene with everything visible but I specially tweak the clarity setting in Lightroom to give that blacken building look. If I could, I would even love to make it looks like abandon city, but ain't that good enough, or at least don't wanna spend so much effort to create that visual effect

In any case, I'm thankful for all the encouragement as well as criticism, I will see what better pieces can be produced in the near future

[wakaowalao]

Originally Posted by David Kwok Seriously given the situation, there seems to be only 2 options available if it will to be done using a single shot, either a nice sky scenery and black buildings or nice buildings with blown out sky or at least an afternoon looking sky. I do have single shots that gives buildings silhouette, but I tend to not prefer that, at least not with what I'm trying to produce. I'm not exactly trying to replicate what I can see, but rather trying to have a scene with everything visible but I specially tweak the clarity setting in Lightroom to give that blacken building look. If I could, I would even love to make it looks like abandon city, but ain't that good enough, or at least don't wanna spend so much effort to create that visual effect

You are contradicting yourself. You want everything visible yet you still want the half-darken buildings??

If you feel that way (don't wana spend so much effort..), then truly you have not produced the desired end result yet.

[David Kwok]

Originally Posted by wakaowalao You are contradicting yourself. You want everything visible yet you still want the half-darken buildings?? If you feel that way (don't wana spend so much effort..), then truly you have not produced the desired end result yet.

My indication that don't wanna spend so much effort is to not get into that kind of effect, which doesn't mean I didn't get what I want.
I still got what I wanted. Besides blacken buildings is not indication of underexposure. There is a difference. Look closely that the way it's blacken, you can see still see tons of details in it

[night86mare]

Originally Posted by David Kwok I'm not exactly trying to replicate what I can see, but rather trying to have a scene with everything visible but I specially tweak the clarity setting in Lightroom to give that blacken building look. If I could, I would even love to make it looks like abandon city, but ain't that good enough, or at least don't wanna spend so much effort to create that visual effect

hdr isn't about making the highlights dark and the shadows bright

that is a common, common misconception. it is obvious that you didn't replicate what you saw, if you had seen a green sky i suppose you would have screamed and gone to hide in an underground bunker instead of shooting.

[David Kwok]

Originally Posted by night86mare hdr isn't about making the highlights dark and the shadows bright that is a common, common misconception. it is obvious that you didn't replicate what you saw, if you had seen a green sky i suppose you would have screamed and gone to hide in an underground bunker instead of shooting.

I did know HDR isn't about just highlight dark and shadows bright. Thanks for reminding
I hope there is no misconception here either.

[hazmee]

Originally Posted by David Kwok Seriously given the situation, there seems to be only 2 options available if it will to be done using a single shot, either a nice sky scenery and black buildings or nice buildings with blown out sky or at least an afternoon looking sky. I do have single shots that gives buildings silhouette, but I tend to not prefer that, at least not with what I'm trying to produce. I'm not exactly trying to replicate what I can see, but rather trying to have a scene with everything visible but I specially tweak the clarity setting in Lightroom to give that blacken building look. If I could, I would even love to make it looks like abandon city, but ain't that good enough, or at least don't wanna spend so much effort to create that visual effect In any case, I'm thankful for all the encouragement as well as criticism, I will see what better pieces can be produced in the near future

Like I mentioned earlier, shooting much earlier when the lights is much softer compared to when the sun is up will help you with the composition much better. All you need is a ND grad to balance the sky and foreground then voila! A frame with good exposure right from the start will certainly help you a lot in post production later to suit the mood you are going after.

Another suggestion would be to try shooting at different timing during sunrise and see which exposure works in your favour.

Hope no offense taken. Cheers!

[David Kwok]

Originally Posted by hazmee Like I mentioned earlier, shooting much earlier when the lights is much softer compared to when the sun is up will help you with the composition much better. All you need is a ND grad to balance the sky and foreground then voila! A frame with good exposure right from the start will certainly help you a lot in post production later to suit the mood you are going after. Another suggestion would be to try shooting at different timing during sunrise and see which exposure works in your favour. Hope no offense taken. Cheers!

No problem at all Will take into consideration when I'm doing such shots again

[sgwong]

May i know HDR mean what? thanks