Banana Breakdown – Shanghai, City of Lights

This specific Banana Breakdown was requested by my friends on Google+

Have any questions? Would you like to see before and after comparisons for other photos? Drop me a line on Google+ and I’ll see what I can do.

The first thing worth noting about this shot is that I used a very good tripod rig to shoot it. Each of the 5 exposure brackets are rock solid, sharp, and perfectly aligned. This gave me the ability to pick up the tiny little details in the buildings and windows. I know lugging around a heavy rig sucks but it’s crucial for these types of shots.

Secondly, it’s shot at my favorite time of day: Blue Hour. Blue hour occurs a short time after sunset or before sunrise and lasts anywhere between 30 minutes to 2 hours depending on global position. You can tell when blue hour is over when the sky turns it’s normal night time black. This gives you a great little shooting window to take advantage of.

As far as the processing goes, the water is taken from a single exposure, the skyline is a blend of HDR and a single exposure, and the sky is 100% HDR. Since I liked the sky from this shot the best, I dropped in the boats from an alternate version. 😉

View the original post: Shanghai – City of Lights.