¤ First attempt @ HDR - Athens @ Night ¤ Photo

Photographer’s Note

[Motivation]
Long time ago! I've recently returned from a fantastic holiday in Greece..and ofcourse will start uploading photo's from this holiday from now on.
Our holiday looked like this :
30-07 - 02-08 Athens @ aimiliospet his place, it was fantastic. In this way another time many thanks to him and his family!

02-08 - 10-08 Paros
10-08 - 17-08 Syros
And we (=my girlfriend and me) have visited quite some other islands on daytrips with ferrylines.
Well, more photo's will come in time, but let's start at the beginning..

[Photo scene info]
At the first day, the day of arrival in Greece..and Athens (our first time there!) Aimilios took us to Lycabettus Hill. To see the sunset from this hill..and look over Athens city. Amazing! It's so big! And so different as my own metropole..Amsterdam. In Amsterdam you have to be on top of a high building to have such a majestic view..here there is just a hill providing the view! Clear enough..we really enjoyed it!

This is my first attempt at HDR processing, I puzzled the shot together in Photomatix 2.3.1. Also the first time I used this program..ooch! Googled for a tutorial and played a bit with the sliders. Have seen different versions of the same photo, this might not the best..but well let's see..
I hope to learn from the comments from real HDR experts here!

[Photo Technical details]
composed of 3 photo's @ 17mm, F5.0, ISO200
2,5 sec, 0,8 sec and 1/6th of a second.

All exposures taken with the camera on my tripod (also kinda new and thus I am unexperienced with it, but I think it worked well ;) )

In PS CS2:
* Added contrast
* White border
* Played with saturation
* Shadows/Highlight
* Minor Crop

Well I hope you like it, but probably have a lot to learn about this technique! :)

Have a nice Sunday!

happypoppeye, evanrizo, Xalkida, Dpbours, Mondaychild, jmcl, kdialyna, yogi32, NellyD, bostankorkulugu, aimiliospet has marked this note useful

Critiques | Translate

danyy (69929) 2007-08-25 15:51

Bonjour Emiel,
je suis moi-même un adepte des traitements en HDR mais jamais essayé sur des photos nocturnes. Je dois avouer que le résultat ici n'est pas mauvais du tout.
Les couleurs et les lumières semblent bien calibrées;
Best regards.
Daniel.

izmirli (3347) 2007-08-25 16:03

merhaba dear emiel
wonderful night and athens.wonderful lights and composition.well done.
best regards.
gürkan akçakır.

ifanik (20694) 2007-08-25 16:43

Hi Emil
Beautiful night shot of Athens
I hope you to passed well in Greece
Regards
Nick

happypoppeye (4064) 2007-08-25 18:28

Great POV Emiel!!! Love the composition, especially the inclusion of the restaurant in the lower left. That one aspect really makes this an original night shot. Perfect exposure and great colors in the city and the sky. Good timing getting the "blue hour" sky above Athens. Just a really good looking shot.

Great work.
John

evanrizo (456) 2007-08-26 1:02

Hi Emiel and welcome back,
nice to see you first HDR result and it is good.
The white of the buildings are bluish and it needs a little more contrast.
Keep on also your HDR works.
Cheers
Evan

drago (4826) 2007-08-26 3:23

Emiel welcome back from holidays!A great night shot,from up there Athens looks fabulous-at night-!I'm waiting for next posts ,the island ones!
Cheers
Panagiotis

CRATEOS (7274) 2007-08-26 6:18

perfect composed Emiel...exelamd note and tech info..a beaute presentation...........tfs
n.f

Xalkida (11740) 2007-08-26 7:45

Hi Emiel,

Not so bad your first HDR attempt in Athens my friend. Fine depth and excellent lighting. Well done.

TopGeo (22495) 2007-08-26 10:54

Hi Emiel
Excellent Shot!.....
With Anguish of soul stay this moment in of side our Homeland that ' You try ' from the ¨FIRE Hurricane¨ and I send my Sympathy and my Sorrow in the Victims of this villain. I wish and I hope it takes END and it is not repeated in no point of Ground(Earth),,,,,,Geo

Dpbours (220) 2007-08-27 3:31

Hi Emiel,

Some incredibly static people at the restaurant below!! 3 different exposures, all together a good 3 seconds and some people are quite visible. Boring crowd down there ;-).
I think the result of your first HDR experiment is very good! I've been trying HDR and stitching lately, but have not yet come to a result I like enough to post. Reading over the critiques, I do have to agree with the blue-ish tone of the houses. I also wonder if it's the blue hour. Think the blue is thanks to the 2 seconds, no? Thanks for sharing this one!

Greetings, Dennis

Mondaychild (1513) 2007-08-27 9:19

Hi Emiel,

I was looking forward to your photos from Greece for one month ... so I´m quite happy to see them now!
The POV is great (what else) ... I think most big cities look best from above and at night! I know, they like these "cold" lights which look a bit greenish at night (also in Turkey)
Well done!

jmcl (14183) 2007-08-27 22:02

Hi Emiel,

Been waiting for these .. glad to start seeing them. I am no HDR expert .. but you have managed to have a great range of exposure .. showing us detail but not ending up in surreal .. I agree on finding the white .. but that may be so hard. Beautiful image. Hope you had a beautiful time.

take care,

John

kdialyna (3106) 2007-08-28 12:12

Good evening Emiel and welcome back from your hollidays.
I don't know anything about HDR technique, only from the results.
As I see your first time with this technique had good results.
Good light and good depth describe your photo.
Regards
Kostas

NellyD (1872) 2007-08-30 4:26

Hoi Emiel,

Welkom terug van je vakantie en leuk weer wat van je te zien hier :-)
Dit is een prachtige avondfoto met heel mooi licht, goeie scherpte en kleuren. Het ziet er erg goed uit, bedankt!

Groetjes, Nel

bostankorkulugu (34198) 2007-08-30 10:40

heey, my man is back from holidays that makes me so jelaous... while we are still in cyprus with our newborn (well, 39-days-old) son till the 5th of september (at cousin's house for internet)... i ve never tried HDR and dont know a lot about it but it looks like a good pic to me... i can hardly wait for the island shots though...

cheers mate...

korkut

ekinokswest (2974) 2007-09-02 17:38

Emiel
Good to see you are back with photos.. what I liked the most about your photo is , something related with life and pleasures of life. Those several people enjoying a dinner , with the possibility of watching the city from such a high point , it may only seem like a minor detail of your photo, but at the same time gives details for alternative travel plans for first time visitors. Thanks for including that, good to witness

Starscream (890) 2007-09-20 10:39

Hi Emiel,
Nicely framed composition with great colours. I really like the inclusion of the people at the restaurant.
Thanks for sharing,
Christianna

steliosk (4784) 2007-10-11 17:44

Not bad for a first attempt
not bad at all
I like the fight between dark yellow and dark blue colours.
The HDR helped you on not to overexpose the lights.

Actually I'm against HDR, in most cases it gives a false tone and lighting, killing the original contrast, which was maintained in this shot :)

Well done Emiel

Regards
Stelios

mphotographies (1976) 2007-10-15 1:33

Hey Emiel,

The composition, POV, lighting is perfect. Perhaps an aperture of f/8-11 would make a sharpier details. Yet still impressed with the view!

All the best!

Jom