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OK - something that ISN'T focus stacked - I know... I know...

We had a number of relatives visiting Sydney and they all stayed in a large apartment in Chatswood. They were staying on the 26th floor and had uninterrupted views from East, South and West from Chatswood towards North Sydney, the Sydney Harbour Bridge and the CBD.

I'd never tried shooting a city scene from way up high before and the view was so good that I went there one late afternoon so I could photograph sunset, twilight and the night views from their large balcony. I took both single shots as well as sequences of vertical images covering about 180 degrees to stitch into large panorama's.

C&C: for these I'd be interested in whether you prefer the (closer) single shot images or the stitched pano's and if you have any suggestions for processing that I've fumbled or composition, etc that I should have thought of (for next time I get another chance like this)

The single shot just (about 5 minutes) before sunset as the late afternoon sun was raking across the buildings and trees. The Sydney CBD is pretty much straight ahead directly in the middle...



This is a panorama stitched from 7 vertical frames (18mm, 1.6 sec at f/11 and ISO 100)



Towards the end of twilight (about 40 minutes after sunset) but before night really settles in, using a long exposure we get both the city lights on, light trails from the cars in the streets and still some deep colour in the sky (just barely lit from the sun over the horizon) - it's a magical time to shoot

The single shot



and the panorama stitched from 6 vertical frames (14mm, 30 sec at f/8 and ISO 200)

The singles

I'd rank them #3, #1, #2, #4
No† sure why I prefer the night single but the day pano, but you asked.

I also prefer the night shot...but I don't know why.

Yep it's #1 and #3 for me so that would be the single wide shots.
As much as anything else I think the cloud pattern is more interesting in these.
You hit these with stoppers and cpls ?

sirhc55 wrote:The singles

Mr Darcy wrote:I'd rank them #3, #1, #2, #4 No† sure why I prefer the night single but the day pano, but you asked.

Matt. K wrote:I also prefer the night shot...but I don't know why.

Mj wrote:Yep it's #1 and #3 for me so that would be the single wide shots. As much as anything else I think the cloud pattern is more interesting in these. You hit these with stoppers and cpls ?

Thanks guys - I'm glad to see this essentially gels with my own thinking - my own ranking was the two singles first (in no particular order - I liked components of each - e.g. I loved the play of light on the wattle and buildings and the coloured chunky clouds in the sunset one and the city lights in the nighttime) followed by the nightime pano and then the daytime pano. One thing is that these look a lot better large (esp the panos) because you just can't see the detail in the smaller shots (esp the panos).

Mj - yep the daytime/sunset/early twilight shots were with the Lee 0.9 hard grad and the new CPL. At some stage as it got darker though I ditched the grad and eventually the CPL as well. In fact it's possible for the two nighttime shots I posted I was bare (no grad or CPL).

Remorhaz wrote:One thing is that these look a lot better large (esp the panos) because you just can't see the detail in the smaller shots (esp the panos).

One of the problems with posting here will always be that you lose the impact and quality of a full size image.
Greg's huge pano of the harbour from the other week for example, I'm guessing, will look superb in full size but posted here just cannot do it justice.

Remorhaz wrote:In fact it's possible for the two nighttime shots I posted I was bare....

Nude landscape photography...

Mj wrote:Nude landscape photography...

Ask Leek. He seems to specialise in it.

Mj wrote:I'm guessing, will look superb in full size but posted here just cannot do it justice.

And sadly it doesn't really work to supply a link to a full res image either. Been there done that. I do recall seeing some interactive web software that allows you to pan and zoom. I must look into it again, but I think it was tied to the gigapan, so may not be open to all comers.