Photos

Civil dusk is the time at which the sun is 6 degrees below the horizon in the evening. At this time objects are distinguishable but there is no longer enough light to perform any outdoor activities.
Nautical dusk is 12 degrees below the horizon in the evening. At this time, objects are no longer distinguishable, and the horizon is no longer visible to the naked eye.
Astronomical dusk is the time at which the sun is 18 degrees below the horizon in the evening. At this time the sun no longer illuminates the sky.
Dusk should not be confused with sunset, which is the moment when the trailing edge of the Sun itself sinks below the horizon.
:from Wikipedia

This picture was started just after sunset at 8:30 P.M on 21-Jan-2006, probably closer to Civil Dusk. This is normally referred to as “Blue Hour”. It’s a favourite time of a lot of photographers on this site.

I tried something different this time. This picture is actually a composite, an HDR Merge of 3 shots. All were shot at 31mm and from close to the same position, to maintain a close approximation with my Red Dawn shot. Exposures were set to F8 8 sec, F8 2 sec and F9.5 2 sec though with the changing light conditions I probably could have just left this as a constant. The final was put together in my computer last night using High Dynamic Range capability. I had read about this process but had never tried it. This seemed like a good time.

Spectacle Island shown here, was discovered in 1788, shortly after the First Fleet arrived in Sydney. It was originally called Dawes Island but the name was changed to match its shape. It had two flat rocky outcrops connected by a sandy isthmus. The shape has changed over the years. Spoil from the Balmain Coliery, “chitter” was used as fill and the island almost doubled in size, allowing it to properly accommodate the early Naval Stores of Australia. Today it is the oldest naval store in Australia. (Information was taken from a plaque set up on the foreshore near the island).

The shots for this photograph were taken in Raw format. They were processed as Raw NEF files to establish the shadow and highlight regions. They were then processed together as an HDR merge. This gives extreme latitude in the exposure range. The first shot was way too light to use on its own with blown highlights, but it provided good shadow detail. The final one was too dark, but there were no blown highlights. For example the light on the left is supposed to be yellow. On the other two shots this was washed out white. The middle one was probably closest to the proper exposure and “what I saw” but the light highlights were blown.

Once the merge was together I cropped it to match Red Dawn, then I applied levels as you normally would. This time I kept my curves layers for normal contrast separate from colour. This worked a lot better for me. I saved the final copy as a TIFF with layers so I can go back and play any time. The copy for this post was resized, then sharpened using Smart Sharpen. I overdid it last time. Hopefully the sharpening is under better control now.

Off site, as with the Red Dawn shot, I expect to continue work on this photo, either with a further crop or with some cloning to eliminate the branches on the right side. I’ll probably go with the cloning or some other technique. I got some great suggestions in my last shot. Feel free to keep those coming.