The moon aligned above the Empire State Building. The light of the moon overpowered the reflection of the Empire State Building on the Hudson River. This was a rare moment I've caught last year, and I wasn't expecting the moon to rise on that day. I'm glad I went out to take photos that night.

I remember the New Yorker hotel's sign was off for maintenance not long before I took this shot. Ironically, the tip of the Empire State Building's antenna wasn't lit, which is evident on this shot. It remained that way for almost a month! Did someone forgot to change the light bulb?

Purchase the original prints at ImageKind.

I had to resubmit this entry; had difficulty creating the poll.

Sorry for taking longer than expected; I had to edit some of the pictures before I could upload them. These are still under draft and require more editing (ie: some of the colors not blending properly), but I will have them in their final version soon. All of these photos are available for print requests. I'm flexible for any requests on any section of the photo. The maximum printable height is about 15” and the maximum length varies from 220” to 270” (depending on the view; I'll update this post with more individual details soon). Please leave a comment for any printing questions, and I'll answer them as soon as possible.

This is one of my personal projects of taking photos of Manhattan. I would like some feedback; please participate on the poll below. I'm open to any suggestions. Thank you.

Note: If you are experiencing any difficulty participating on the poll, please leave a comment, and where it says “From”, post as “Anonymous”. Any comments posted as Anonymous are screened, therefore, it won't be visible to the public and I can forward any poll participation to the poll itself. Thank you.

( 3 views of Manhattan - Available for print request. )

Poll #1165545 Which view of Manhattan do you like best?
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 1

Which view do you like best?

Which view do you like least?

What do you like (if any) most about View 1 (At sea level)?

What do you like (if any) least about View 1 (At sea level)?

What do you like (if any) most about View 2 (Above sea level)?

What do you like (if any) least about View 2 (Above sea level)?

What do you like (if any) most about View 3 (South)?

What do you like (if any) least about View 3 (South)?

Any suggestions/comments

I've just noticed that the New Yorker Hotel had it's sign off (only visible in View 2 when the sign is on). It's located in front of One Penn Plaza, the tall building that have a red glowing sign that's to the right of the Empire State Building. I'll post one of the Empire State Building with the New Yorker Hotel sign lite up soon.

As I've mentioned on my Digital Photography fun: HDR (High Dynamic Range) - Part I post, the range of the exposure plays a key role on HDR. I've made some good examples to demonstrate, as well as one HDR photo of Ashes.

( Click for more photos. )

In conclusion, the range of the exposure can give one better results versus the number of exposures one take. From this demo, the exposure shift of 2 EV produced the best HDR. However, results vary depending on the lighting condition, shutter speed, and aperture. The beauty of digital cameras is that one can see a preview of the photo taken. If it's too dark or light, just adjust the EV value slightly, take another photo, and judge if you can use it. I'll demonstrate HDR night photography on the next post.

Don't worry, the can was empty:


Here are some photos I took to demonstrate HDR and tone mapping. Basically, HDR (High Dynamic Range) is taking more than one exposure of a photo and combine them. Since the human eye can pick out more details than the camera and the camera can only pick out a limited amount of highlight/contrast, the best way around this limitation is to take a photo that's balanced (0 EV), one under exposed (ie: -2 EV) to capture the contrast, and one over exposed (ie: +2 EV) to capture the highlight. You can combine the multiple exposures with a program, such as Qtpfsgui (freeware) or Photomatix(free trial). Adobe Photoshop CS3 has a built in HDR feature, and here are some samples I took. Note: All the photos were taking with an aperture size of F9 and ISO 80:

( Click for more photos. )

Some cameras have a built in feature that allows you to take more than one exposure automatically (ie: continuous shooting with exposure shift). However, one should go experiment by what's built in your camera, any manual exposure shift, and the lighting condition. My camera supports continues shooting at 0.3 stops and 0.7 stops. The greater the stop number, the greater the range you can capture. Needless to say, I avoided 0.3 since I don't get much of a good range. To get 1 full stop (ie: +1.0 EV) or even 2 full stops, I would have to change the shutter speed manually until I see the exposure bracket points to my desired stop (ie: +1.0 EV). Having said that, I decided to experiment further by taking a few more exposures to demonstrate why the range makes a big deal in the end. I'll post more photos to illustrate my point later on.

===Update: Forgot to post link===

I found an interesting article on how to build your own macro flash unit. I'm seriously going to give this one a try when the tutorial is complete. That's also a god one on building your own macro studio.

I couldn't post earlier, but here's Tuesday's post.

( Tuesday's Album )

I've tried to post some photos of Boots earlier, but I got caught on a personal project. To make up for the delay, I've decided to dedicate this week posting pictures of Boots. Here's the first, small, batch of pictures.




( Monday's Album )