I spent the week in Chicago and got out one evening to the planetarium to grab a city scape shot at blue hour. Lens is the FA77 on the K3II. 22 frames x 2 levels of exposure(44 images total), manually stitched and blended in Photoshop.

[pofenloch]

very nice !

[mcgregni]

Impressive! A great result, and I can see the advantages of shooting with a longer focal length and stitching rather than choosing a wider angle.

[Outlander]

Awesome Photo Love it !

[volley]

That is a great shot Mike!

[slowpez]

Impressive Mike.

[photoptimist]

Another Awesome Image, Mike!

I love the inclusion of the wet pier in the lower-left and how its angle parallels the angle of the clouds. A lot of photographers would have excluded/cropped out that in order to concentrate the image on just the skyline. But you included it and that really helps place the viewer on the shore looking across the lower-end of the lake at the city.

I also like your choice of shutter speed for the water -- slow enough to create motion blur but fast enough to leave some wave structure. It definitely creates a sense of "Windy City" motion to accent the otherwise motionless buildings.

Finally, the timing is perfect with enough remaining light in the sky to give a sense of the day that was and the enough darkness (and city lights) to convey the city waking up for the night to come.

Thanks for posting this!

P.S. I'm very curious about the order of the shots which seem to be 2 rows of 11 (and 2 exposures each). Did you work from left to right or right to left? Did you zig-zag up/down, do the lower row first, or upper row first? Did you do two bracketed exposures each position or run through the whole series twice? Blue hour changes so quickly and the need to balance sky, city, and water seems tricky enough that I can imagine rationale for all sorts of shot-orders.

[mikeSF]

very nice !

Impressive! A great result, and I can see the advantages of shooting with a longer focal length and stitching rather than choosing a wider angle.

indeed, there is some magic to being able to zoom in post and find more and more detail

A very good photograph. Applause!

Awesome Photo Love it !

That is a great shot Mike!

Impressive Mike.

Thanks for your nice comments!

---------- Post added 09-12-2017 at 09:01 AM ----------

Another Awesome Image, Mike!

I love the inclusion of the wet pier in the lower-left and how its angle parallels the angle of the clouds. A lot of photographers would have excluded/cropped out that in order to concentrate the image on just the skyline. But you included it and that really helps place the viewer on the shore looking across the lower-end of the lake at the city.

I also like your choice of shutter speed for the water -- slow enough to create motion blur but fast enough to leave some wave structure. It definitely creates a sense of "Windy City" motion to accent the otherwise motionless buildings.

Finally, the timing is perfect with enough remaining light in the sky to give a sense of the day that was and the enough darkness (and city lights) to convey the city waking up for the night to come.

Thanks for posting this!

P.S. I'm very curious about the order of the shots which seem to be 2 rows of 11 (and 2 exposures each). Did you work from left to right or right to left? Did you zig-zag up/down, do the lower row first, or upper row first? Did you do two bracketed exposures each position or run through the whole series twice? Blue hour changes so quickly and the need to balance sky, city, and water seems tricky enough that I can imagine rationale for all sorts of shot-orders.

Thanks and I'll try to answer your questions here.
The wet pier...earlier when i arrived was totally dry and nothing to look at. I had framed higher to get more sky and avoid it, until a tour boat rounded the bend at full clip and splashed a wake up at me. Then I saw the reflection and decided to use it for some ground anchor and foreground. To compress the space between fg and distant shore, I got as low as possible and was lying in the bird poop to get the frame i wanted, lol. The later and darker it got, the better the concrete appeared.

I used 13sec for buildings and 5sec shutter to render the sky/water, which was big choppy waves. When water is still, it can make a gorgeous reflection of the city lights, but this was not to be, so long enough to smooth it a little was fine w me.

timing: i shot about 4 complete passes after sunset and this was the last one. I kept waiting for the blank sky area behind the Sears tower to darken, but it never seemed to, and threatened to blow the highlights. I used 0 and -1.7 EV for the bracketing. The dark exposure was intended to handle the sky and and blown city highlights(using a luminosity mask for bright brights).

order of shots: its a single row with lots of overlap. 20 frames x 2 exposures(0&-1.7)= ~40 total. With peri-sunset panos, because the light is changing so fast, I start at the dark end (ie, away from the sun), metering to overexpose a little, knowing that by the time I get to the sunny end of the frame, the light will have diminished. So, I started at the far right and worked as quickly toward the left. The other consideration with clouds is to always shoot against the cloud motion to avoid getting the same cloud repeating itself in successive frames. Luckily, all cloud traffic was traveling southeast, so it worked out.

I typically prefer photoshop's stitching algorithm, though i have Hugin, which offers better control and often a better result. In this case, PS failed badly due to the long length of th strip, so I locked and end image and made the others transparent, dragged them individually into place and eyeballed the rows of windows to line up the frames. I got a better end result than trying to auto align the frames as usual.

That's pretty much it. Glad you enjoyed it and thanks for the comments!!

[photoptimist]

indeed, there is some magic to being able to zoom in post and find more and more detail









Thanks for your nice comments!

---------- Post added 09-12-2017 at 09:01 AM ----------



Thanks and I'll try to answer your questions here.
The wet pier...earlier when i arrived was totally dry and nothing to look at. I had framed higher to get more sky and avoid it, until a tour boat rounded the bend at full clip and splashed a wake up at me. Then I saw the reflection and decided to use it for some ground anchor and foreground. To compress the space between fg and distant shore, I got as low as possible and was lying in the bird poop to get the frame i wanted, lol. The later and darker it got, the better the concrete appeared.

I used 13sec for buildings and 5sec shutter to render the sky/water, which was big choppy waves. When water is still, it can make a gorgeous reflection of the city lights, but this was not to be, so long enough to smooth it a little was fine w me.

timing: i shot about 4 complete passes after sunset and this was the last one. I kept waiting for the blank sky area behind the Sears tower to darken, but it never seemed to, and threatened to blow the highlights. I used 0 and -1.7 EV for the bracketing. The dark exposure was intended to handle the sky and and blown city highlights(using a luminosity mask for bright brights).

order of shots: its a single row with lots of overlap. 20 frames x 2 exposures(0&-1.7)= ~40 total. With peri-sunset panos, because the light is changing so fast, I start at the dark end (ie, away from the sun), metering to overexpose a little, knowing that by the time I get to the sunny end of the frame, the light will have diminished. So, I started at the far right and worked as quickly toward the left. The other consideration with clouds is to always shoot against the cloud motion to avoid getting the same cloud repeating itself in successive frames. Luckily, all cloud traffic was traveling southeast, so it worked out.

I typically prefer photoshop's stitching algorithm, though i have Hugin, which offers better control and often a better result. In this case, PS failed badly due to the long length of th strip, so I locked and end image and made the others transparent, dragged them individually into place and eyeballed the rows of windows to line up the frames. I got a better end result than trying to auto align the frames as usual.

That's pretty much it. Glad you enjoyed it and thanks for the comments!!

Thank you very much for the detailed insights. Blue hour (should be called blue minute) panos are quite challenging!

[bertwert]

I spent the week in Chicago and got out one evening to the planetarium to grab a city scape shot at blue hour. Lens is the FA77 on the K3II. 22 frames x 2 levels of exposure(44 images total), manually stitched and blended in Photoshop.

An awesome cityscape

[mikeSF]

Thank you very much for the detailed insights. Blue hour (should be called blue minute) panos are quite challenging!

An awesome cityscape

Hey Thanks!!

[Photogoof]

I spent the week in Chicago and got out one evening to the planetarium to grab a city scape shot at blue hour. Lens is the FA77 on the K3II. 22 frames x 2 levels of exposure(44 images total), manually stitched and blended in Photoshop.

Amazing!

[ToddK]

Not only a fantastic image, but thanks for walking through your process. It is very enlightening

[mikeSF]

Not only a fantastic image, but thanks for walking through your process. It is very enlightening

I always tell people here that I learned what I know from asking questions in Pentax Forums, so now it is my honor and duty to respond to questions whenever I get them. I have on numerous occasions invited folks to call my cell so i could walk them through a particular technique, as it is always easier to explain on than phone versus typing it all out.

[BigDave]

I just came across this image. Very nicely done and a great creative process. Why it was never in the exclusive gallery, I do not know, but it should be!