Luna Park and Views from Milsons Point, Sydney

[RB]

I had the opportunity to visit Sydney again a week or so after my previous visit and this time took photos from Milsons Point, just under the bridge on the Luna Park side.

Luna Park was very colourfully lit up and I was able to get these shots without anyone around, well who would be around at 2am? :whistle:

Again these are presented in HDR.
I've included links to the full size versions of around 3000 x 2000 pixels so you can scroll around and see the level of detail captured in these as the small web-sized images don't do them justice.

The first is Luna Park itself. (1Mb, 2000 x 3000 px approx)
http://www.astro-image.org/page/tr/lunaparkhdr1ff.htm

Next is The Opera House from across the Harbour. (700kb, 3000 x 2000 px approx)
http://www.astro-image.org/page/tr/lunaparkhdr2ff.htm

And lastly a shot of the Harbour Bridge from Milsons Point wharf. (900kb, 3000 x 2000 px approx)
http://www.astro-image.org/page/tr/lunaparkhdr3ff.htm

My apologies in advance but I've had to place copyright watermarks throughout these as they're the high res versions.

Hope you enjoy.

[Liz]

Magnificent - absolutely gorg shots of bridge/Opera House!! Love that area of Sydney - when down there I enjoy a beer at That ? Dwyers restaurant - pricey, but views worth it.

[iceman]

Stunning images, andrew! Wow! they're great.

[h0ughy]

not bad for a mad happy snapper!!

[Dennis]

Excellent work Andrew, the photos are simply stunning. They look very natural and contain the full range of tones which is very pleasing to the eye.

Do you generally feel safe out at 2:00am with all that gear?

Cheers

Dennis

[RB]

Thanks for your comments everyone, I was quite excited with the way they turned out.


I'll have to check it out next time Liz. :thumbsup:


I only take the camera with a single lens and tripod with me Dennis and a small bag but yes I get nervous walking around at night.
That was the latest I've stayed out down there.
LOL I try and look as mean as possible when walking around but I'm a big softy as you can imagine. :lol:

[acropolite]

Beautiful images Andrew although I'm also a bit worried about you being out on the town at that late hour.....:thumbsup:

[gmbfilter]

Simply stunning. Don't believe the detail. I've spent about an hour scrolling through the large images, its like looking at an old friend in a new
perspective.

[Deeno]

Lovely colour and so sharp....
Were you wearing your freezer suit.......:scared2:

[RB]

Thanks Phil, yeah I won't be doing any late night city shots again for a while, I'm happy with what I've got so far.


Nicely put Geoff, even though there's so many photos of the bridge, it's nice to see it in hi-res with so much detail. :)



Nah mate no freezer suit, although at times I wish I had my freezer suit on.
LOL I did have my IIS beanie on though.......:whistle:

[jakob]

Fantastic Photos Andrew! :thumbsup:

The HDR process makes a real difference.

Well Done!

[GTB_an_Owl]

you mean to tell me Andrew, that you didn't wear your NEW vest ?

shame on you

geoff

[AlexN]

OH YEAH!!

Awesome images Andrew! HDR is so aesthetically pleasing. You could say it brings out the best in the image... :whistle:

[RB]

Cheers guys, it's amazing to see the detail emerge as you process the 'raw' 32 bit image.

[smenkhare]

what lens/settings did you use for the harbor bridge shot? Looks kinda wide angle considering how zoomed in it looks.

[RB]

I used the Canon 24-105mm L set at 24mm.

[ving]

much much better than any hdr i have ever done. very cool shots :)

[Starman73]

Hi Andrew,

Lovely shots. What camera do you have? During the Olympics I went down the harour at night, took a lovely shot from around the Opera House looking back towards Circular Quey, the reflection of the city lights on the water was wonderful. I took the pic with my Canon 500n film camera, one of the best I have done. Also got a great pic of the bridge, once again at night but I didn't have my tripod with me but managed to do a longer exposure shot and managed to hold the camera steady enough to get a great pic. I should scan the negative and post the pics.

Keep up the good work if you dare!

Paul

[RB]

Thank you David, glad you liked them.
Would love to see some of your HDRs.



Thank you Paul, I used the Canon 20D for the shots.
I would love to see your shots too Paul, please scan and post them.

[Starman73]

Hi Andrew,

I will get around to scaning the pics for you in the next couple of days. I think I have done it already so I just have to find it too, so watch this space and I will get them here as soon as I can.

Paul

[gary]

Hi Andrew,

Once again, some beautiful shots of iconic Sydney locations.
Picture postcard perfect.

Best Regards

Gary

[Robert_T]

Wow Andrew, your HDR night city-scape stuff just blows me away.:thumbsup: I'm wondering do you just pull in the exposures using Automatic merge HDR in CS3 or do you apply a more manual approach?

I had a go with some simple AEB triplets I took of Victoria's Parliament building early AM (see attached) when I was down there on business last week. In some ways the effect seems "flatter" than the individual frames and appeared noisier in the shadows. Any tips?

cheers,

Rob

[gary]

Hi Rob,

Really nice shot.

The "flattening" is an artifact of the final tone mapping. You have all these bits
of high dynamic range which you then need to map to the (unfortunately) low
dynamic range of the output device, namely the monitor.

It's a bit like using high-end recording equipment to tape a concert in
full Dolby surround sound and then having to re-play it through a pocket AM
radio. :)

So the final tone mapping is a "lossy process", which also accounts for
noise in the shadows. It is simply that less dynamic range (i.e. less information,
less bits) have been devoted to rendering the shadowed areas, in this instance.
However, you can control this to some extent when performing the tone mapping.
In the end, until the day comes along that the technical limitations of present
day CCD cameras and display monitors are overcome and they can
capture and display the high dynamic range image without any loss of information,
then it is all about compromise, and in practical terms that means tweaking with
the controls on your tone mapping.

With that in mind, some scenes tend to lend themselves to the HDR/tone
mapping process better than others.

Hope this helps.

Best Regards

Gary

[RB]

:thumbsup:


Thank you Gary, much appreciated.




Rob that's a very nice shot, the colours are nicely matched.
As Gary said, when converting down from the 32 bit HDR image, we squeeze the range down to the available dynamic range of the lowest common denominator ie. the monitor.

But HDR is a very interesting beast in that the more data you have to play with, the better your final result will be, not unlike our astro processing.

I actually do all my exposures in Manual mode and dial up the exposures going through from very dark right through to overexposed, skipping every second stop or so.
In these I actually combined around 12 or 13 frames per photo and used PS3 merge to HDR function to get the 32 bit frame which I work from.

My tip would be to set a constant aperture and of course ISO, then dial in your various exposures in M mode, and don't be afraid to do at least 5 or more frames per HDR photo.
This is why HDR is not suited for all types of photography but it does yield some fantastic results when it's applied correctly.

Let me know if you need more info.

[Robert_T]

Thanks very much Andrew, I really appreciate you advice. I'll try again with 2 stop spaced images, at least 5 or 7 and see how I go.

Do you just let the HDR merge function in CS3 take care of what bits it uses in the resulting 32bit frame?

cheers,

Rob

[Starman73]

Hi Andrew,

Sorry its taken me so long, I have trouble at counting a couple. Anyway here are those pics I told you about. I think they were damn good considering it was film, and done without a tripod. Anyway, have a look let me know what you think. I know the bridge with the rings is probably one that everyone has, but I think its a good pic.

Catch up with you later
Paul

[RB]

Yes I choose all my frames, from darkest to lightest and let CS3 do it's thing.
Once it returns with the stacked frame the only thing I adjust is the
"Set White Point Preview" slider to the right so it darkens the frame if the highlights appear blown.
Then I change the Mode from 32 bit to 16 bit and this brings up a dialog box which I leave at the default settings (Exposure + Gama).

Once I'm in 16 bit mode I proceed to process the image like any other image, adjusting "Shadow/Highlights", "Curves", "Expose" etc.

It's very similar to working with stacked astro images at this point and you gain valuable insight to use on astro images too.



Very nice Paul, the colours are rich.
I still love film, it has something to it which I can't explain but I really like.

If you have Photoshop or something similar maybe you can apply a little bit of sharpening and slight colour saturation boost because inevitably a little is lost in the scanning process.

You are lucky you got these photos with the Olympic rings, I wasn't into photography in a big way back then and so have nothing of this type of shot to do with the Olympics.
I never get tired of viewing shots like this.

Well done.

[Starman73]

Hi Andrew,

Thanks for that, I will give those things a go. I love the ability to see the photo you have taken instantly that comes with digital photos, but I love the look of film.

When I got that camera, I was so surprised with the colour I got out of it. I had had experience only with instant cameras before that and the photos were always the best from my Canon 500n. I really dont know if it is the camera or the film I used that produces great colour. I generally only used Fuji Film with great results like the pics I showed you, then on holidays once I ran out of that film and got Kodak film, I noticed that the colour was still very good, but I dont think it was quite as vivid. Now with the digital the photos are great too. Took a road trip to Perth from Sydney via the coast last year, had plenty of photo opportunities, wonderful views to capture and the digital SLR was amazing. Only problem was there was a little speck of dust on the CCD chip so a lot of my pics have a couple of small specks on them, that doesn't happen so much with film.

Anyway, moving with the times, digital is the way to go. I cant wait to get out and take some photos through my scope once I get it all set up.

I am glad I got to show you the pic with the rings if you didnt get to get one. I thought it would be so cliche, the kind of pic everyone got, but I am so proud of it considering it was a night shot, slightly long exposure and I took it without a tripod or any kind of support.

I am glad you liked it, I hope others liked them too.
Catch you later
Paul