Downtown Dubai
Well, I finally made it to the 124th floor of the Burj Khalifa (a.k.a Burj Dubai), thanks to my wife for queueing over 1 hour last week to get the tickets for today!
It's not a cheap ride (around 20 euros), but it is damn fast (60 seconds for 124 floors!). You barely feel a thing, except a slight discomfort in the ears like in a plane.
** Dubai Set | Digital Blending Set | Night Photography Set**
Early morning view from the 124th floor platform of Burj Khalifa. It can get pretty crowded there, so not easy to find your spot. Also, the glass was fogged from outside and the empty space between the glass and railings is very limited, so not easy to position a camera. Anyway, got this as a memory from this insanely tall building.
'L' for the best view in LARGE
Another clear and relatively cool (25 C) evening in Dubai, it is such a treat to go out shooting these days! I already had two shots from that vantage point, but never had a blue hour one.
A little break in my latest B&W series, this one really deserved to be shown in glorious colors! :)
** Dubai Set | Digital Blending Set | Night Photography Set**
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An unusual harsh light shot on my photo stream! I thought I could get away with it by creating a tone-mapped HDR, use a very long exposure for the water, and convert it to B&W. And as a bonus you get some clouds, another rarity in Dubai!
Technical stuff: 7 exposures tone-mapped HDR with Oloneo Photo Engine, water replaced with a single exposure shot with ND400+ND8 stacked (f/22, 4 minutes), final composite image converted to B&W with Nik SilverEfex Pro.
Sorry for not commenting much lately, likewise don't feel obliged to leave a comment :)
This shot is in the 15 TOP Google+ Photos for February 22
'L' for the high definition view!
Clouds are so rare in Dubai, no need to tell you how glad I was to have some over the Burj Khalifa yesterday morning at 6am!
Vertorama + Digital Blending.
** Dubai Set | Digital Blending Set | Night Photography Set | Vertoramas Set**
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Panorama of Dubai skyline from the marina in Business Bay
The sun reflecting off the highest building in the world. Burj Khalifa with it's almost 830m, has held that status since 2010, but there are rumours of even taller buildings in the planning stage.
One of those rare cloudy nights in Dubai. I was also lucky with the reflections, just after I took this shot, the wind kicked in and the reflections were gone. I waited for 30 minutes for the wind to go down and take more shots but then I gave up.
Special thanks to my new photog buddy Sebastian who had the great idea of bringing me to this place that cloudy night.
** Dubai Set | Digital Blending Set | Night Photography Set**
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Must be viewed LARGE! Just type L
I know I posted a similar shot in 2010, actually I was hoping to get a cloudy sunset for this shot, unfortunately the clouds cleared out :-(
It has been quite chilly in Dubai these days, between 14 to 18 Celsius. I am not going to complain though :)
Digital Blending and Vertical Panorama, a total of 8 exposures used: 2 for the top part of the vertorama, 6 for the bottom part.
** Dubai Set | Digital Blending Set | Night Photography Set | Vertoramas Set**
Panorama of the Dubai downtown area where Burj Khalifa is located. A stitch of 7 horizontal images.
Well, it's good to be back on flickr! I think I broke my own record of absence on flickr! Well, it's currently the hottest season in Dubai (40+), hence not very motivating to go out and shoot!
Some technical notes: this is a vertorama, 1 exposure for the top, and 7 exposures for the bottom. On those 7 exposures, 4 are bracketed shots at f/8, digitally blended. The remaining 3 exposures are shot at f/22 (around 1 minute shutter speed). Those 3 shots are combined using Smart Objects in order to get those dense light trails (same method used for star trails).
** Dubai Set | Digital Blending Set | Night Photography Set | Vertoramas Set | Burj Khalifa Set**
One of those rare haze free and cloudy dusk in Dubai :)
Just to give you an order of the scale, this tower is 828 meters high (163 habitable floors + 46 maintenance floors in the spire). The Address Hotel on the right looks very small with its 63 floors.
D800 & Sigma 50mm f/1.4 Digital Blending
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I got lucky for this photograph. First, there were low clouds flying around Dubai skyscrapers, which is far from a common thing in Dubai. And then a ship entered into my long exposure and lit the bridge from below. Really enjoyed this place!
Shot with the Fuji X-E1 & Fujinon 14mm.
An awesome compact camera with DSLR image quality!
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Must be viewed LARGE! Just type L
I took a similar shot in the past, but this one is better in my humble opinion, in the previous one the vertorama stitching was a bit dodgy and the fountains over exposed :)
Technical deconstruction of this shot:
- Vertical Panorama
- The buildings were shot at ISO 200 f/5.6 (3 exposures: 1, 2, 4 sec shutter speed) - Digital Blending
- The fountains were shot at ISO 800 f/2.8 1/200 sec shutter speed and added to the buildings shot.
I am still not very active on flickr these days, but I am looking forward to visiting your streams!
** Dubai Set | Digital Blending Set | Night Photography Set | Vertoramas Set**
Hello my dear friends! Well, it's been a while since my last upload, almost a month! Mostly due to lack of motivation and inspiration to go out shooting.
But tonight I had a good reason to go out for a shooting since my long time flickr friend Aubrey Stoll from UK was visiting Dubai.
There is a sand storm at the moment, hence a very dense haze, and quite unusual colors for my night shots.
It's good to be back anyway! See you on your streams soon!
5 exposures Digital Blending, shot with my Nikkor Fisheye lens.
Yet another shot of Burj K, but different vantage point, and not at the blue hour for a change. This was shot at around 10:30pm, but the temperature was well over 35º C, not to mention the 75% humidity.
A total of seven exposures used for this digitally blended vertorama.
I would have preferred to use the bridge on the left as a 'lead-in' to the tower, but it was not possible to compose this way, I had no space to maneuver at all.
** Dubai Set | Digital Blending Set | Night Photography Set | Vertoramas Set | Burj Khalifa Set**
It is more and more challenging to get a clear open view on Burj Khalifa and its surrounding, as new constructions are obstructing the view from many viewpoints. This shot is a digital blending of 4 exposures: 2 exposures at ISO 100 f/8 to capture the cityscape, and 2 exposures at high ISO to capture the fast moving LED illumination on Burj Khalifa, and the fountains.
There are 70,000 LED bulbs illuminating Burj Khalifa, covering an area of over 32,000 sq. metres.
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Shot from the Address Skyview
Welcome to the latest shot of the series!
Please check the whole series so far: View From The TopThe Veins Of Dubai #1The Veins Of Dubai #2The Veins Of Dubai #3The Veins Of Dubai #4The Veins Of Dubai #5The Veins Of Dubai #6The Veins Of Dubai #7The Veins Of Dubai #8The Veins Of Dubai #9The Veins Of Dubai #10
** Dubai Set | Digital Blending Set | Night Photography Set**
Press L for the best view!
Today, a very clear sky in Dubai, and thanks to friend of mine who gave me access to the helipad of a 60 floors building from where I took this shot. More to come soon!
Please check the whole series so far: View From The TopThe Veins Of Dubai #1The Veins Of Dubai #2The Veins Of Dubai #3The Veins Of Dubai #4The Veins Of Dubai #5
** Dubai Set | Digital Blending Set | Night Photography Set | Burj Khalifa Set**
Burj Khalifa
Early morning fog shot from the 76th floor of Burj Khalifa in Dubai.
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Continuing my 'Dark Hour' exploration of the Burj Khalifa. I guess this shot would be great at the blue hour, but at that time this area will be very crowded (and I don't feel like cloning out all the people!).
Digital Blending, Vertorama. a total of 7 exposures used. The Vertorama part was very tideous, for the first time I had to use the 'Warp' function of the Transform tools to deal with the optical distortion.
** Dubai Set | Digital Blending Set | Night Photography Set | Vertoramas Set | Burj Khalifa Set**
Sometimes it's good to scan through my old shots, this is one I completely missed to process a year and a half ago :)
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Shot from the 101th floor of Burj Khalifa last December. This is fog and not a sand storm as seen in the movie Mission Impossible 4 Ghost Protocol :)
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Type 'L' for the mandatory LARGE view!
Another 'forgotten' shot from my archives, taken in July last year. A non blue hour view of Burj Khalifa for a change :)
Please check the same view at the blue hour, 20 minutes later.
Obviously the most predominant building in Dubai's skyline, Burj Khalifa is 828 meters high and has 162 habitable floors.
Taken from one of the terraces of the Address Hotel (you can see the swimming pool in the foreground). On the right side is the gigantic Dubai Mall, and on the left side is the Souk Al Bahar with its traditional architecture.
Digital Blending + Vertorama
** Dubai Set | Digital Blending Set | Vertoramas Set**
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Vertical Panorama & Digital Blending. Original full size: 7034 x 12546px. I have uploaded a smaller size of 2243 x 4000px. Below is a 100% crop of the original full size photo.
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One of the main interchange of Dubai on Sheikh Zayed Road
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Rare moving clouds in Dubai, calling all enthusiastic photographers to go out shooting that day!
My website: www.danielcheongphotography.com
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Dubai engulfed with fog during sunrise. Long exposure with ND1000 filter.
My website: www.danielcheongphotography.com
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Shot a few hours before the fireworks shot I posted previously.
D800 & Nikkor 14-24mm
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Shot from a high tower located in Business Bay. I used my Nikkor 70-200mm f/28.8 VRII (@200mm), and of course needed to do some magic with Digital Blending to achieve such a shot. The buildings are from digital blending of 5 bracketed exposures at ISO 100 f/8 1 to 16s. The fountains were shots at ISO 1000 f/2.8 1/200s and combined with the buildings.
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Thanks to all Phoide contributors to Downtown Dubai!
Most notably Daniel Cheong, Jiri Hajek, Frank Voigtländer, Kari Siren and Rob Oo.