= Stefan's Weekly Singapore City/Landscapes II =

[SomeFormOFhuman]

^
That's just brilliant Stefan!

This is brilliant. If the pillar is not then, it would be even better. Nice work and including yourself in your work are something refreshing...good job!

Thanks guys. But yeah, the pillar really really bugged me actually... I had another shot without the pillar as with everything similar, but I preferred the pillar because it had a kind of strong segregation between the opposing forces.... The one without the pillar wasn't what I kinda want, but with the pillar added it bugged me too mainly because it was - just way too big. I personally felt it would've worked alot better with a smaller column but well, just gotta work with what you're given I guess.

#237

One Morning at Jalan Rajah

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2 Image HDR/DRI 4 image panorama using GND 0.9 soft. Jalan Rajah, Singapore.

Another one of those kinds of photos using lines as curves as an added advantage. One of those free days of free exploration of HDBs around Singapore. I kinda dislike the photo mainly because it's meaningless and lacks any story or visual climax. Time to innovate, move up a notch and stop shooting repetitive junk. I realised this only after looking through my entire gallery, it's filled with them.

 

[anavrinsea]

wah cant believe this is in singapore, so nice

 

[salleh1987]

Aaaa~mazing Thread u have here.. Complete with all description of how the photo was taken.. Good Job Mate.. Loves All Your finishing.. Waiting For More Again!

 

[SomeFormOFhuman]

wah cant believe this is in singapore, so nice

Aaaa~mazing Thread u have here.. Complete with all description of how the photo was taken.. Good Job Mate.. Loves All Your finishing.. Waiting For More Again!

Thank you guys. I'm touched. Yep, that's my plan actually - I'm doing all I can to explore great places around Singapore. I still do believe there are many places yet to be discovered, yet to be shot. I can only imagine what the future holds....

#238

SuperCity [Experimental]​

2 Image HDR/DRI, 7 image panorama, Single Image RAW for lightshow, Clarke Quay, Singapore.

So I heard so much about a great place alot of photographers have been talking about and famously shot over a million times. As someone who has a great distaste for shooting the Central Business District area, (Never really liked shooting the city; no reason) I went ahead to check it out instead since I was around the area.

It ain't all that bad as I was looking for a place to experiment shooting a panorama without loosing the top ends of the beams, coming from the distant Marina Bay Sands. Alot of photos consist only a single frame because doing a pano/vertorama might disrupt the lightshow's beams when merged during post-processing. I guess there are ways to achieve this now.

The beams were shot towards the end of the light show, as I realised this is the best yet minimal take instead of seeing all the laser beams everywhere.

Once again, it's been 3 months, and I'm still using the Sony A99. There's one thing I really liked about this camera and the Carl Zeiss o) 16-35mm combo and it's the handling of the highlights (neon signs and all that), they don't appear overblown as I observed with my EOS 7D.

UPDATE: Fixed 3 dust spots and 1 pano-mismatch

 

[MachBot]

Thank you guys. I'm touched. Yep, that's my plan actually - I'm doing all I can to explore great places around Singapore. I still do believe there are many places yet to be discovered, yet to be shot. I can only imagine what the future holds....

#238

SuperCity [Experimental]

2 Image HDR/DRI, 7 image panorama, Single Image RAW for lightshow, Clarke Quay, Singapore.

So I heard so much about a great place alot of photographers have been talking about and famously shot over a million times. As someone who has a great distaste for shooting the Central Business District area, (Never really liked shooting the city; no reason) I went ahead to check it out instead since I was around the area.

It ain't all that bad as I was looking for a place to experiment shooting a panorama without loosing the top ends of the beams, coming from the distant Marina Bay Sands. Alot of photos consist only a single frame because doing a pano/vertorama might disrupt the lightshow's beams when merged during post-processing. I guess there are ways to achieve this now.

The beams were shot towards the end of the light show, as I realised this is the best yet minimal take instead of seeing all the laser beams everywhere.

Once again, it's been 3 months, and I'm still using the Sony A99. There's one thing I really liked about this camera and the Carl Zeiss o) 16-35mm combo and it's the handling of the highlights (neon signs and all that), they don't appear overblown as I observed with my EOS 7D.

UPDATE: Fixed 3 dust spots and 1 pano-mismatch

Got booted out when I went there the 2nd time, bad luck I suppose. That was about a month back.

 

[SomeFormOFhuman]

#239

The City Celebrates [Experimental]

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6 x Single Image RAW panorama, Single image timelapsed for Marina Bay Sands' light show + 2 image timelapsed for fireworks. The Esplanade, Singapore.

OK, this is probably my first, ever upload in my entire gallery consisting of fireworks. The light show and the fireworks came in at a different timing by nearly 10 minutes apart, so they were taken at two separate timings then carefully combined in Photoshop.

The problem here wasn't really about the fireworks or the light show, it was albeit the previous' shot - I was scratching my head if there really was a way to do a panorama without disrupting both the fireworks and the light show, as we know well by now stitching multiple images together disrupts the flow and continuity of the next frame. I hope what I did here fixes it...

The weather was unfortunately cloudy and that really took a toll on the fireworks. So I had to tweak some temperature adjustments to make the skies slightly "blue" again.

As for the fireworks, they were taken as it was in frame with the only exception of the red orchid-styled firework at the top left. I cropped and added that in here from another frame as I like the shape of it, I really do. Hahaha

 

[SomeFormOFhuman]

Thank you, guys. Thank you for your support!

#240

Misery At The Elgin

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Single Image RAW, 2 image panorama to relief left side spatial tightness, ISO 50 + f16 to achieve 400 seconds shutter speed for smoothed water effects and continuous river boat trail lights. Elgin Bridge, Singapore.

The weather wasn't really to my advantage, but the clouds were moving incredibly fast - so I thought of trying super long exposure to achieve smoothed cloud and water effects.

Within 5 minutes of long exposure, many boats came and the effects given off from it were neat. Thus, minimal post-processing was done to it.

I didn't really liked the composition because the right side of the frame feels visually unbalanced and this really disturbs me a lot. So initial plans were to include the Marina Bay Sands' light show into the left side of the image, but that didn't work out for the cloudy skies and the beams appear faded caused by the turbulent skies.

Well, better luck next time...

 

[SomeFormOFhuman]

Thanks Macaroni.

#241

Bridging The Dream

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18 Image 6x3 Verto+Panorama, 3 image timelapsed for fireworks + single image RAW for Marina Bay Sands' lightshow. Marina Bay Promenade, Singapore. Shot with the Sony A99 + 16-35mm Zeiss.

Throughout all the other previous' experiments of stitching multi-images together without loosing any part of the firework or lightshow, I've decided to take the plunge and challenge myself to a 6x3 multi-row panorama attempt with the fireworks and light show in place.

I thought of just leaving a little bit of smoke caused by the fireworks, this somehow seems "realistic" in appearance, then just "floating" in mid-air.

Was again to my frustration another cloudy night, so custom temperatures were set to achieve a slightly bluer effect.

Somehow, I am still dissatisfied with the final output of the image. Not sure what was it, but it just seems to.

UPDATE: Managed to fix and straighten the tile lines of the jetty as it appears, instead of it being curved. Also fixed other mild pano-mismatches in the reflections.

UPDATE II: Increased contrast and fixed gradient banding over skies. Decreased temperature and reduced saturation.

UPDATE III: Fixed mild distortion of Marina Bay Sands and increased sharpness and "structure" of certain buildings' texture.

 

[edutilos-]

Hey Stefan - Just wanted to ask, do you use a pano head? Always wondered how the huge amount of images stitch up without. I guess manual stitch would work but it's really really painful for multi-row. So basically (correct me if I'm wrong), you stitch the base panorama, then add in the lights and fireworks from individual images? Having trouble visualising how it's done, would be great if you could share a bit more detail of what is done here. Thanks in advance!

Anyways, I think emulating this shot would be difficult, basically because only one person can get this angle at each seating. :bsmilie: Thankfully on fireworks days I guess the river cruise services at the jetty do not operate? In any case, the shot works fine for me. One minor nit is that the fireworks are just a little wee bit blown - if it's possible you could consider dialing down the exposure in the base files and that should do the trick. Perhaps a bit more structure in the buildings as well - not sure if you get what I mean but the jetty has some amount of structure, while the buildings seem relatively "faded".

 

[kohbro]

Thanks Macaroni.

#241
Somehow, I am still dissatisfied with the final output of the image. Not sure what was it, but it just seems to.

Perhaps its becos the reflections of MBS is "smoother" than that of the Raffles Place skyline?

Anyways, this would be the photo I'd blow up to cover my bedroom wall!

Love ur stuff!

 

[macaroni]

Woah Stefan u don't have to thank me. Your works are amazing as always and I got a lot to learn from your thread.

 

[SomeFormOFhuman]

Hey guys, sorry I was away. I came back here just to update the picture yesterday but didn't have time to get back to you. =)

Anyway I got a lot of PMs asking how I actually did the shot (Thanks everyone for your support!!!), so as explained below is how I did it.

Perhaps its becos the reflections of MBS is "smoother" than that of the Raffles Place skyline?

Anyways, this would be the photo I'd blow up to cover my bedroom wall!

Love ur stuff!

Woah Stefan u don't have to thank me. Your works are amazing as always and I got a lot to learn from your thread.

Hey Stefan - Just wanted to ask, do you use a pano head? Always wondered how the huge amount of images stitch up without. I guess manual stitch would work but it's really really painful for multi-row. So basically (correct me if I'm wrong), you stitch the base panorama, then add in the lights and fireworks from individual images? Having trouble visualising how it's done, would be great if you could share a bit more detail of what is done here. Thanks in advance!

Anyways, I think emulating this shot would be difficult, basically because only one person can get this angle at each seating. :bsmilie: Thankfully on fireworks days I guess the river cruise services at the jetty do not operate? In any case, the shot works fine for me. One minor nit is that the fireworks are just a little wee bit blown - if it's possible you could consider dialing down the exposure in the base files and that should do the trick. Perhaps a bit more structure in the buildings as well - not sure if you get what I mean but the jetty has some amount of structure, while the buildings seem relatively "faded".

1) What I did was to frame in such a way that you'll be able to see the fireworks and MBS + the lightshow all within the same and single frame. In that way, it'll be much easier to manage when the time comes for you to manually blend the fireworks + lightshow into the verto/pano.

2a) once the usual process is done (after capturing the fireworks and the light show of the same view without ever moving the tripod, the usual stuff) then you can start panning to capture the rest of the scene. You can also capture the rest of the scene while waiting for both the fireworks and lightshow to start, but I captured mine afterwards because there were less clouds.

2b) Then back home on Post processing, you do the usual blending of the fireworks and the lightshow (like how you normally do) on that single frame we first aimed at to capture both the firework and lightshow prior to stitching the rest of the other images. Once finished on that single frame, you can start combining all of em'. =)

3) And this is where the problem comes in - Yes, using PTGui, AutoPano etc, will all give the same results - the fireworks and the lightshow will appear "cropped" because of the stitching process caused by the overlaying of the other images - Don't worry. Export the image from PTGui (PTGui is awesome!!!) then open the pano in Photoshop, next overlay the shot that has the firework and light show you've blended earlier onto your stitched pano, and try your best (Can't think of a much easier way to say it :bsmilie to "fit & match", manually blend that shot into the pano by skewing, distorting, warping erasing some areas and liquifying it. You may want to set the opacity to say, 50% of the overlayed image as that'll be much easier to blend over. Yeah, I admit it's not easy, and will take a while to do it.

I also tried using PTGui's mask tool to "force" certain parts of the image into your final pano. That works well too and I guess it's easier but the results are somehow a little mixed - Yes, you *might* be able to get all the fireworks and light show into the pano but the other parts of your pano might suffer from many (yes, I mean A LOT) of severe mismatches and some of them are just impossible to fix (Especially the buildings). Which has led me to think that manually blending it into your pano is safer accurate.

But yeah, I have to admit what I did was the "impromptu" aka trial and error way of stitching the shots together. Prior to this shot, there were a few experiments I did as seen previously that requires the same technique. There may be other ways... For that, I am not sure. It's pretty much trial and error.

PS, I didn't use any pano head. =( Just use the ballhead's tighten and loosen noobs to pan manually. A pano setup? Can, but first I need $$$. Hahahaha

Anyway thanks guys!!! PM me if you need more help.

 

[edutilos-]

Ah, I get what you mean. Thought it would be done something like that, though I didn't expect for pano programs to be used. Thought you had to stitch manually (don't ask me how, I don't know how to beyond 2 or 3 shots). That's what I did for the recent Duxton shot I made. I guess this way may be easier since part of the job is already done. Mismatching is not so bad I guess - since all you really need to do is hit the lights part, not the whole frame... And well, fireworks are fireworks. Thanks for taking the time to explain!

 

[SomeFormOFhuman]

No problem man, hopefully to see yours!! I know it's gonna be awesome!

Here's a simple one from Toa Payoh...

#242

The Central Hub
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2 Image HDR/DRI using GND 0.9 soft + ND 0.9 for smoothed traffic effects. Toa Payoh Hub, Singapore.

Another exploration of Toa Payoh after a nice sumptuous meal nearby. After looking through my entire gallery of all of Toa Payoh, I came to realise it's a place of over many photographic possibilities. Who knows what other unexplored areas of Toa Payoh can bring about, I can only wonder.

Also, this is a good vantage point to try out Sony's 24-70mm Zeiss lens. I wanted to remove the rather distracting lens flare at the left but decided to leave it to show what this lens can give. Very little editing has been done to the image because of the rather awesome dynamic range from the A99. So here's a simple scene of Toa Payoh at 24mm. Enjoy.

UPDATE: Increased contrast and reduced highlights at the bottom.

 

[Wang TH]

truly inspiring!! Thanks for the great tips! Glad that you are loving the Sony!

 

[SomeFormOFhuman]

truly inspiring!! Thanks for the great tips! Glad that you are loving the Sony!

Thanks Wang TH, more importantly always remember to keep shooting, make mistakes and experiment - let nothing stop you!

#243

Televised Photography

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5 Image panorama. Pearl's Centre, Chinatown, Singapore.

Something deep really struck me all this while... Rarely do I look through my entire gallery just to see how far I went, how much I progressed. After looking through, somehow feel they need adjustments, needing improvement, lacking story and insight; the meaning. I realised they're nothing more but "junk food for the eyes". So here I am, sitting in the comfort of my dirt cheap "living room", watching my own work, the force of it blowing through my hair but arms crossed unimpressed by them. Thinking - what I can do to innovate, how to be different, how to create an identity. Finding ways to push the boundaries of creativity, eliminating repetitiveness.

I couldn't find any way to express it but one place could - It was none other than Pearl's Centre based on a similar concept I did last time: The Sun on My Side | Flickr - Photo Sharing!

UPDATE: Brightened scene by 30%.

 

[DMajor]

Thanks Wang TH, more importantly always remember to keep shooting, make mistakes and experiment - let nothing stop you!

#243

Televised Photography



5 Image panorama. Pearl's Centre, Chinatown, Singapore.

Something deep really struck me all this while... Rarely do I look through my entire gallery just to see how far I went, how much I progressed. After looking through, somehow feel they need adjustments, needing improvement, lacking story and insight; the meaning. I realised they're nothing more but "junk food for the eyes". So here I am, sitting in the comfort of my dirt cheap "living room", watching my own work, the force of it blowing through my hair but arms crossed unimpressed by them. Thinking - what I can do to innovate, how to be different, how to create an identity. Finding ways to push the boundaries of creativity, eliminating repetitiveness.

I couldn't find any way to express it but one place could - It was none other than Pearl's Centre based on a similar concept I did last time: The Sun on My Side | Flickr - Photo Sharing!

Nice one. Looks like u're enjoying a private movie.

 

[SomeFormOFhuman]

Thanks DMajor.

#244

Aloha, Changi

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2 Image HDR/DRI, using GND 0.9 soft + GND 0.6 soft for higher tonality of the sky + ND 0.9 for smoothed water effects, 2 Image vertorama to exaggerate sense of vastness. Changi Broadwalk, Singapore. Shot with the Sony A99 + 16-35mm.

It's been a while since I've been there and that place hasn't changed much bit. It's also been a while since I've shot seascapes, partly due to an exposed leg injury; therefore chosen to stay out of the seawater for the time being...

Once again, not much has been processed other than fixing some shadowed parts of the image and the overblown sunrise, as the dynamic range output of the Sony A99 proved to be... Out of this World.

UPDATE: Fixed right side distortion.

 

[SomeFormOFhuman]

#245

Light Shed

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2 Image HDR/DRI. Changi Beach Broadwalk, Singapore.

While walking back from where I came this awesome pattern struck my eye. I didn't actually want to process and upload the shot as it seems kinda random.

Also wanted to stand way much further back as I wanted the appearance of the shed to be much smaller, but there was a lamp post behind me.

 

[roberts]

I was in Singapore last week and tried 3 hours in Tiong Bahru to search for the exact location where you captured your photo #197. I failed. I have chance to visit Singapore next month. Could you please reveal the exact location to me so that I can shoot this photo? Thanks a lot.

Thank you, mds80.

#197

Road To The Everlasting​

2 Image HDR/DRI 4 image vertorama. Tiong Bahru, Singapore.

When I received her new house address to give Chinese New Year cookies to my aunt, it looked familiar. Especially for a residential tower that tall, I took no chances and brought my camera. I looked out from her unit's view... and I knew this was the place many photographers have been telling me about. Was in luck, and in time when the distant lightshow was about to begin.