Uploads from TheFella, tagged nighttime

A Lithuanian Fairy Tale

nobody@flickr.com (TheFella) — Mon, 20 May 2013 01:20:32 -0700

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The Milky Way above Trakai Island Castle in Lithuania.

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NIKON D800 / ISO 4000 / f/2.8 / 10s / Nikkor 14-24mm f/2.8 @ 15mm / Location: Trakai, Lithuania

Celestial Bodies

nobody@flickr.com (TheFella) — Sun, 28 Apr 2013 16:10:20 -0700

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The night sky above a mountain in Snæfellsnes, Iceland. We had started driving more and more into the middle of nowhere when we came across this awesome looking mountain. We jumped out of the car, turned off the lights and the amount of 'astro-stuff' you could see was phenomenal!

This clearness in the sky didn't last for long and the stars were soon hard to photography due to light pollution. The upside is that this light pollution was caused by the aurora borealis. BONUS.

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Details
NIKON D800 / ISO 5000 / f/2.8 / 25s / Nikkor 14-24mm f/2.8 @ 14mm / Location: Snæfellsnes, Iceland

Colours of the Night Sky

nobody@flickr.com (TheFella) — Sun, 28 Apr 2013 16:01:21 -0700

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The aurora borealis at a fjord in the Snæfellsnes Peninsula, West Iceland.

Aurora Over The Ice Lagoon

nobody@flickr.com (TheFella) — Thu, 18 Apr 2013 00:59:25 -0700

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The Aurora Borealis over Jökulsárlón ice lagoon in South Iceland.

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Nikon D800 / ISO 5000 / f/2.8 / 25s / Nikkor 14-24mm f/2.8 @ 14mm / Location: Jökulsárlón, Iceland

Dance of the Heavens

nobody@flickr.com (TheFella) — Wed, 03 Apr 2013 01:05:50 -0700

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You may be sick of my Iceland photos already, but I still haven't posted a proper shot of the Northern Lights; the Aurora Borealis.

Time to rectify that.

We had just spend hours photographing an amazing display of the lights and were trying to find somewhere to camp (i.e. park the van). We found this little lay-by surround by mountains and, as it was after 02:00 and were were tired and hungry, we pulled over and made some food.

The lights here were quite quiet, but I wanted to see where exactly we where (it was total darkness), so I took some photos of the surrounding area. When I was doing this, the Aurora started up again with another amazing display.

Luckily the surrounding mountains were spectacular.

Read this on my blog: thefella.com/blog/dance-of-the-heavens.

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Details
Nikon D800 / ISO 3200 / f/2.8 / 14-24mm @ 23mm

Where Worlds Collide

nobody@flickr.com (TheFella) — Mon, 25 Mar 2013 07:46:36 -0700

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Have you ever dreamed about getting a waterfall, the Milky Way and the Aurora Borealis in the same photograph? To be honest, I haven't, as it seemed a bit silly.

Turns out, I've managed to capture all these things anyway.

I'm just back from eight days in Iceland with my photography travel buddy Greg Annandale where we travelled around the whole of the island in a van with Lindsay Lohan on the side of it. We called it the "Lindsay Lo-van".

This has benefits and drawbacks. The main advantage is that we can sleep anywhere and get around nearly the whole of Iceland at a moments notice. The main disadvantage is that sleeping in Iceland in winter in the back of a metal van is very, very, very cold. We had temperatures of around -12 degrees Celsius, with the wind chill bringing that down to around -20.

Anyway, on one clear evening, we decided to head up to Gullfoss, one of the biggest tourist attractions in Iceland and do some night-time shooting. The lack of tourists was nice, but the freezing 04:00 temperatures and spray from the waterfall meant that we had ice forming all over our equipment.

Expect a lot more Iceland photos over the next few weeks and months!

Read this on my blog: thefella.com/blog/when-worlds-collide.

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Details
Nikon D800 / ISO 5000 / f/2.8 / 14-24mm @ 14mm

Bromo Night Sky

nobody@flickr.com (TheFella) — Fri, 22 Feb 2013 15:38:42 -0800

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This is definitely one of the most alien landscapes I've ever visited; A giant crater containing a desert tundra and four volcanoes.

To get to the viewpoint for sunrise, you need to get up at around 03:00. We decided to get up a bit earlier to see what the sky was like.
Sadly, due to it being rainy season, it was very cloudy. Every now and again, we (myself and Fran) got a break in the clouds and it was nice to see the stars peeking through.

Although there was no Milky Way, I quite enjoy the layers created in this photo.

Read this on my blog: thefella.com/blog/bromo-night-sky.

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Details
Canon EOS 5D Mark II / ISO 2000 / f/5.0 / 17-40mm @ 17mm / Manual blending

The Fisherman and The Lamp

nobody@flickr.com (TheFella) — Thu, 14 Feb 2013 00:03:14 -0800

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This was very, very early in the morning. Myself and Greg had arisen at about 04:00 and Sam drove us to this point on the river.

I pulled out the camera and tried shooting this cormorant fisherman, but it was so humid, even at this time in the morning, that my lens started fogging up.

Thankfully, the condensation actually gave this quite pleasing burst of light from the lamp. There is hardly any processing done to this shot, just some white balance, sharpening and denoising.

I managed to get another shot as he set off down the river...

Read this on my blog: thefella.com/blog/the-fisherman-and-the-lamp.

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Details
Canon EOS 5D Mark II / ISO 6400 / f/4.5 / 17-40mm @ 36mm

Kuala Lumpur

nobody@flickr.com (TheFella) — Mon, 14 Jan 2013 06:31:44 -0800

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My first stop on my tour of South East Asia was Malaysia and my first stop in this country was the capital, Kuala Lumpur.

After researching lots of shots of this fantastic city, I had decided that I had to get the iconic shot of the Petronas Towers (sometimes called the Twin Towers) during the blue hour.
There are very few places to get a good angle and even fewer that are publicly accessible. The best one I managed to find was The Traders Hotel. On the 33rd floor of this is the SkyBar; a fancy, but relaxed bar with a swimming pool right in the middle of it.

Even better (for me) than mid-drink swimming was the massive open windows that faced out towards the Petronas Towers. Although you're not allowed tripods here, the windows, when open, actually form a ledge about two feet wide.

Using a stabilising platform carefully crafted out of my long trousers (for mosque work) and spare shirt, I was able to have my camera steady enough to get seven night-time brackets of the KL skyline.

Technical Stuffs

This was an HDR composed of seven exposures, from -3 EV to +3EV. These were processed in Photomatix, then the original exposures were gradually blended through manually in Photoshop. Areas like the sky and ground are probably 90% one exposure (although not the same exposure).

This was finished off by a lot of colour correction to make it vibrant, but not to make it look wholly unnatural. Nik Software's Viveza was also used to tweak particular parts of the image to my liking.

This is definitely one photo that I'll have mounted and put on my wall at home! (If you want, you can also buy a print of Kuala Lumpur, with plenty of options of materials and sizes).

Read this on my blog: thefella.com/blog/kuala-lumpur.

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Details
Canon EOS 5D Mark II / ISO 100 / f/8.0 / 17-40mm @ 17mm / HDR

Marina Bay Sands

nobody@flickr.com (TheFella) — Wed, 09 Jan 2013 12:07:55 -0800

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This looks much more fantastic when viewed in the lightbox!

Singapore is a photographer's paradise. It's full of amazing architecture, often has amazing sunsets and sunrises due to being in the tropics and also has cool things like lasers shows.

Thankfully one of these laser shows happens twice a night at the Marina Bay Sands and I took this chance to capture it.
I was out walking with my good friend of over a decade, Celia. She has been living and working in Singapore for a number of years and was giving me the lowdown. We had reached the marina / bay and she had to take a phone call, so I saw this as an opportunity and nipped down to the water's edge.

I set up at my (new, awesome, 3 Legged Thing) tripod and only had to wait about 5 minutes for the lasers to start up. It's not a particularly long show, but I snapped away continuously all the way through it, hoping to capture a nice array of beams.

Now onto the slightly more technical information. This photo is actually about five exposures manually blended together. A main shot, one for the building lights along the waterfront, a couple for the lasers from the Marina Bay Sands itself and one for the lasers from the Art Science Museum on the left.

These were all blended together using a number of various methods in Photoshop. Let me know what you think of the result!

Read this on my blog: thefella.com/blog/marina-bay-sands.

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Details
Canon EOS 5D Mark II / ISO 200 / f/5.6 / 17-40mm @ 27mm / HDR

Blade Runner

nobody@flickr.com (TheFella) — Mon, 29 Oct 2012 11:34:47 -0700

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View on black please! Definitely one for the lightbox :)

I'm often amazed when you look at some cityscapes. Hong Kong is definitely one that blows you away. After taking many shots of the city as a whole, I grabbed the telephoto and started doing some close-ups.

When it came to processing this one, it immediately reminded me of the movie Blade Runner by Ridley Scott (and based on the book Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick).
I think it's the whole film noir style of filming that was used in the movie to provide that dystopian sci-fi feel that's synonymous with these genres. Anyway, Hong Kong can often look pretty futuristic, even though some of these skyscrapers are getting on a bit now.

Also, if any of my readers are in Kuala Lumpur, Singapore, Jogja or Jakarta, please get in touch.

Read this on my blog: thefella.com/blog/blade-runner.

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Details
Canon EOS 5D Mark II / ISO 100 / f/3.5 / 17-40mm @ 200mm / HDR

The Invaders

nobody@flickr.com (TheFella) — Fri, 03 Aug 2012 04:53:15 -0700

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VISIT ME ON FACEBOOK

National Centre for the Performing Arts (The Egg) was on my list of places to shoot since I knew I was going to Beijing. There are so many different angles and times of day to photograph this fantastic building that you could spend a couple of days just shooting around here.

After trying to get a few decent sunset captures, myself and Greg ended up at the very front getting some long exposure night shots. I'm not sure whether is was our matching equipment, our stunning good looks or the fact that we were white, but at one point we much have had a crowd of about 12-15 Chinese people gathered around us trying to see our LCD screens. Ah, the life of a pseudo-famous person.

The title of this shot is not only to show how alien this work of art-itecture is, but also to pay hommage to one of my favourite shows of all-time. Did anyone used to watch this? In fact, my very first tweet ever was about it's star, Roy Thinnes.

Sorry I haven't been posting photos as much as I possibly should; I've been really busy in work and also trying to rebuild my websites. I'm still pretty active over on Facebook, so why not like my page! :)

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Details
Canon EOS 5D Mark II / ISO 100 / f/20 / 17-40mm @ 22mm / HDR

Hong Kong

nobody@flickr.com (TheFella) — Tue, 17 Jul 2012 09:03:01 -0700

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** Stupid Lightroom changed the permissions on this and therefore I lost all my favs. Sorry about that :( Please fav again if you want. **

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To round off our several weeks of round the world travel, myself and Greg finished up in Hong Kong, one of my favourite cities in the world and one which I hadn't visited for 12 years. It had changed a huge amount, yet was somehow still quite familiar.
Although this is the most common shot of Hong Kong, that's no reason not to take it, so we headed up to the peak (Victoria Peak) on the tram nice and early.

If you haven't been on the tram, do it. If you have been on it once, never ever do it again; the queues are hideous. At the top, we scouted the best location on the viewing platform and set up our tripods. We spent hours up there watching the light change and also trying to get our cameras in the right position. To get the railing out of the way, you need to extend the tripod neck out, but go too far and there is a huge channel of wind that will probably take your head off, let alone shake your camera a bit.

The Hong Kong skyline is fantastic from here. You can see buildings like The Bank of China, the International Finance Centre and the new and huge International Commerce Centre. In fact, the latter was almost next to our hostel. For those of you that know Hong Kong, our hostel was in the magnificent grandeur that is the Chungking Mansions. Yes, we're that fancy. At least it's opposite Tsim Sha Tsui Station (which I had to keep pronouncing for Greg).

I want to say a big thank you to my uni friend Bex, who took us out every night we were there, lent us money and showed us a fantastic time. We saw some of the most awful going out streets in the world (Lan Kwai Fong), but also found some amazing places like a little speakeasy we ended up in one evening / morning.

My company has an office in HK and it's very tempting to move out there one day for a while...

Details
Canon EOS 5D Mark II / ISO 200 / f7.1 / 17-40mm @ 25mm / HDR

The Gold of Dubai

nobody@flickr.com (TheFella) — Mon, 11 Jun 2012 04:17:30 -0700

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I'm finally back from my trip, albeit for only one day! I'm flying off to Budapest in the morning, so I won't have time to catch up on all your photos just yet! In between trips, I thought I'd slip in a quick photo from my trip to the United Arab Emirates, which now seems like a lifetime ago, even though it was only a few weeks.

We bought our tickets in advance for the Burj Khalifa and turned up with our big travelling rucksacks. The guys at the reception said we needed to check them in, which is what we expected. I asked if I could take a lens out and bring it up. He then enquired if it was all camera equipment. I said yes, lenses and tripod. He, surprisingly, then said it was completely fine to bring it all up. Bonus!

Once at the top, we admired the view, then had to wait around for about 5 hours for the sunset and night time to hit. During this time, the staff on the observation deck approached me several times and said it was fine to set up my tripod wherever I wanted. A hugely refreshing change from other countries! Bravo to the Burj Khalifa.

Once it was time to set up, myself and Greg had to pretty much lean our cameras out the little holes in the glass windows to get a descent angle. Let me tell you, when you set your 5D MKII outside a window on the 124th floor of the tallest building in the world, your tripod locking bolts have never been tightened tighter!

Luckily it all went without a hitch and I got to see (and hopefully capture) some of the amazing architecture and grandeur that is Dubai. This view here is, to me at least, the proper gold that Dubai is famous for.

Please stayed tuned for some more photos from the UAE, plus China, Hong Kong and maybe even Macau. We have a few behind the scenes videos, so once I get them edited, I'll post them up for you :)

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Details
Canon EOS 5D Mark II / ISO 100 / f/13 / 17mm / HDR

Pyramids

nobody@flickr.com (TheFella) — Thu, 22 Mar 2012 18:19:17 -0700

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This was a quick off-hand shot on the way into the courtyard at the Louvre, but I quite liked it when I got round to processing it. It has an almost alien quality to it. As I've probably said in previous Louvre photos, this place is hideous during the day. Throngs of people, massive queues and a bad atmosphere. At night-time, however, it's a whole different pyramid of fish.

During the small hours, the whole courtyard become magical. Hardly anyone is around late and night, the water is amazingly still and yet you're in the heart of Paris. So my tip is to avoid the whole area during the day and wait until everyone goes home. You'll miss the Mona Lisa, but that was one of the most underwhelming things I've ever seen.

The glass pyramids were not.

Please view large in the lightbox, as it take on a whole new feel.

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Details
Canon EOS 5D Mark II / ISO 200 / f/5.0 / 17-40mm @ 17mm / HDR

A Storm Approaches Paris

nobody@flickr.com (TheFella) — Sun, 29 Jan 2012 16:04:21 -0800

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Explore #74

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I was in Paris and did the usual tourist thing of going up the Eiffel Tower to get some shots of the Parisian skyline. While up there, I could see this massive storm approaching the city in the distance. The clouds were right along the horizon and lightening was just about visible.

This is much nicer when viewed on large. You get to see all the intricate details and colours. I wish Flickr had a bigger default size. I'll try and catch up with your photostreams later in the week!

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Details
Canon EOS 5D Mark II / ISO 100 / f/6.3 / 17-40mm @ 17mm / HDR

The Razor

nobody@flickr.com (TheFella) — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 02:00:00 -0800

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I know it's the 17th of January, but happy new year everyone! This is my first proper post of 2012, as I've been so busy with work and training. I haven't had the chance to really get out with the camera, although I have been planning some trips for later this year. Myself and Greg A are off to China in the spring, so if anyone has any good advice, we'd appreciate it!

Although this cityscape isn't as pretty as some others, I thought I'd take the chance to show the often overlooked south London. As cityscapes go, it's pretty lacking in excitement, especially when compared to the glamour of the north London skyline, but it's still worth seeing. The main building is The Razor, a residential block that resuses rainwater and whose roof contains three wind turbines to generate some of the building's power.

I really like the futuristic feel that this photo has. There's something about the way the metallic skyscraper stands out amongst the smaller surrounding houses.

I'll hopefully get posting some more landscapes soon, assuming I get more time and can find some in the archives. For those of you that missed it, I produced a video showing my photography from last year (which is also my first year of photography). You can see it at:

vimeo.com/34314964

I know I say this about all photos, but this one really pops on black! It also really needs to be seen extra large, so here's a link to it on Smugmug:

Extra large version.

I'll catch up with your Flickr streams as soon and as best as I can!

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Details
Canon EOS 5D Mark II / ISO 100 / f/7.1 / 17-40mm @ 40mm / HDR

Night-time Norway

nobody@flickr.com (TheFella) — Thu, 29 Dec 2011 04:23:32 -0800

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If you recognise this viewpoint and location then bonus points for you, as you've obviously been paying attention. This is overlooking the city of Bergen in Norway. I love a good cityscape, whether it is at sunset or in the dark, cities can look wonderful. I've called this night-time, although it's also very much in the blue hour. That doesn't give a good aliteration though.

It was only when I was processing this photo that I noticed I had captured light trails from the funicular coming up the hill. It's only a tiny part of the overall image, but I really think it adds to it. You can just make out the very last light from the amazing sunset earlier. This was possibly the longest sunset I have ever seen. I swear we could still see bands of pink on the horizon at about 23:00. In a truly modest fashion, this photo looks tremendous in the lightbox.

I'm currently working on another video, so I hope to get that up before the end of the year.

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Details
Canon EOS 5D Mark II / ISO 100 / f/8.0 / 17-40mm @ 25mm / HDR

Tower Bridge

nobody@flickr.com (TheFella) — Tue, 15 Nov 2011 16:47:40 -0800

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Explore #7

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Although not as good as my other photos of Tower Bridge, I still thought I'd put this one up, as it not only shows different ambient light, but also from a different angle than my previous shots. This was taken after the greatest sunset in the world had finished. It also feels good to get back to posting famous landmarks lit up at night! A point to all the non-UK people, this is a bridge in London, but it is not London Bridge, it is Tower Bridge; so many people get them mixed up!

I'm off to Finland and Estonia with VJ and Greg later today, so please excuse my absence. I'd also like to thank the people who gave me all the fantastic Helsinki advice in my previous photo. I'll get around to thanking you in person once I return! I've been very busy in work recently, so apologies if I haven't been as active on your photostreams as much as you'd like. I'll try and have a look when I eventually get the time. (You may have noticed I've also been posted photos my less frequently.)

As a night shot, this looks far more splendiferous when viewed large and on a dark background, so give that a go please. Available to buy on RedBubble as a print, poster or postcard if you so wish.

No images in comments please. I've had to delete a lot recently and even ban a few people.

Details
Canon EOS 5D Mark II / ISO 100 / f/8.0 / 17-40mm @ 26mm / HDR

Starry Starry Night

nobody@flickr.com (TheFella) — Tue, 01 Nov 2011 08:07:42 -0700

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This definitely needs to be seen in the lightbox!

Although I love night photography, I've never really captured the stars before. I've had the odd shot that has a few, but never really any proper starscapes. The only other time I tried was in the Sahara desert and it was too cloudy at night to get anything!

After a long, long day hiking around Lake Bled in Slovenia, I was walking back in the dark, when I noticed how amazingly clear the sky was. Being so far in the Slovenian countryside (about 60 km north west of Ljubljana) and surrounded by the Julian Alps means that there is very little light pollution around.

While sitting around waiting on a shot to finish, a nice Israeli family came up to talk to me about my travels and photography. We chatted for quite a while and they offered to put me up if I ever visited Haifa. How kind! They even offered me a lift back to my hotel, seeing it was so cold, but I declined as I knew I'd want to take even more photos as I walked back around the lake. I finally got indoors around midnight and then had to get up at around 06:00 for sunrise.

I chose this title as I know my Dad likes the Don McLean song about Vincent Van Gogh.

Most people are well aware that I say this about most photographs, but this one does need to be viewed large and on black, as it completely changes the photo!

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Details
Canon EOS 500D / 5D Mark II / ISO 800 / f/4.0 / 17-40mm @ 29mm / 20 seconds