Merlion at Night

[Shuttercrab]

1. in what area is critique to be sought?
- Composition, and HDR processing.

2. what one hopes to achieve with the piece of work?
- To capture the Merlion with the CBD buildings in the background.

3. under what circumstance is the picture taken? (physical conditions/emotions)
- Tried using long exposures, and realized either the Merlion is overexposed, or the buildings in the background is underexposed. So decided to try HDR.

4. what the critique seeker personally thinks of the picture
- Think the HDR processing part came out quite well. But coz i was using UWA, so there's distortion and the buildings were leaning inwards. Tried to correct it with my noob photoshop skills :sweat:

Thanks for viewing!

 

[Kit]

HDR is not helping much. It only helped to prevent the Merlion from over-exposed and that could be easily done with a shadow/highlight slider adjustment. This looks like any other photos which was taken too late in the evening where the building lights and ambient light had become too contrasty.

If you were to take this photo earlier in the evening, you would have avoided all the problems which you thought you could fix with HDR. The key is to wait for the right ambient light that have lesser contrast with the building lights. That could mean you have to spend at least 1 hour waiting for the light but beats trying to save the photo in post editing anytime.

 

[night86mare]

If you were to take this photo earlier in the evening, you would have avoided all the problems which you thought you could fix with HDR. The key is to wait for the right ambient light that have lesser contrast with the building lights. That could mean you have to spend at least 1 hour waiting for the light but beats trying to save the photo in post editing anytime.

agree with this point.

lighting and timing aside, i can't say i find the composition here compelling. the merlion is centred, there is visible keystoning here, and the buildings on the left could do with some amount of space.

 

[Shuttercrab]

actually i was there at that time so i can catch the "flowers" on the Maybank building too. but i've never thought of going earlier in the evening before, which i think is a great idea! i shall try that someday. i did also try adjusting the highlight on the slider on a normal exposure pic, but the merlion was too much over-exposed and too much detail was gone in my case :cry:

it's kind of like a mixed reason why the merlion is centred: i try not to cut off the fullerton building, i try to keep the buildings on the left in frame, i try not to have too much empty space at the top, and the merlion just ended up right in the middle. i'm too "greedy" i guess... (i didn't really like it too, i think i need to try to find another angle for it)

i tried to correct the keystone, but somehow i'm not doing it right, the more i adjust, the weirder it looks. so i just straighten the buildings a bit and stopped there :sweat:

really appreciate the suggestions and comments, thanks!

 

[daredevil123]

i tried to correct the keystone, but somehow i'm not doing it right, the more i adjust, the weirder it looks. so i just straighten the buildings a bit and stopped there :sweat:

really appreciate the suggestions and comments, thanks!

One of the reasons why keystone may be hard to correct in this pic is because your picture is actually slanted to the right.

You must first fix the horizon before you adjust for keystone.