Penang Bridge

[kito]

It has been a long time once again since I last uploaded any pictures here. Been really busy with work. This time around I decided to take some pictures closer to home. This is a picture of a bridge connecting the place I stay Penang Island to the mainland. It is one of the few iconic bridges in Malaysia.



1. What you are trying to accomplish
For this picture, I am trying to bring out the beauty of the bridge, while making use of the reflection of the water beneath it.

2. What you did to move toward that goal
I tried to split the picture into half, so that there will be ample space for the refection of the lights, which I think would look very nice. I also use a CPL hoping to add to the contrast and also because there are a lot of water in the picture (eventually I realized that it is a bad idea doing so after it is so dark). I also used HDR for this picture but I think it did not do much good to the picture except an increase in saturation and contrast. Not much of a HDR.

3. What aspect of the image you would like to see improved, and
I'm hoping to improve on the composition of this picture and the post processing part of it. I am hoping to achieve as much a natural look without losing out on the contrast and details.

4. What you feel your skill level is in this area.
My skill are still at beginner level in both composition and post processing.

Do let me know your honest opinions and C&C for improving this picture. Much thanks in advance!

P/s: Retrospectively thinking and after much comments from others, I think if I have went there at an earlier time, the image would have been much better looking.

[FrankMi]

Hi Keat, compositionally, with the elements that are visible, it looks just fine. You have avoided splitting the image in two at the horizon and the only concern I really notice is the string of lights along the top of the bridge taking the eye out of the image at the top right.

One thing you could try, provided the bridge signs are sufficiently indistinguishable, is to flip the image horizontally to see if it looks any better. Sometimes our eyes start on the left side and with the image reversed the feeling of fading into the distance on the right might be more appealing.

Images taken at night and particularly HDR triple exposures can easily get fuzzy unless precautions are taken to ensure that the camera doesn’t move during the multiple exposures. Obviously the use of a tripod is required but you may also need to do a mirror lock-up, use a cable release, and a shutter delay timer if possible. Overexposure is really easy to occur at night when shooting bright lights against a black background which can also contribute to a fuzzy image so I would try again with a lower exposure.

Really high contrast scenes like this one may need a wider exposure range than the typical +2EV, 0EV, and -2EV we would use for a daytime HDR so you may want to experiment with up to + and – 5 EV exposure bracketing.

Hopefully you'll be able to reshoot and try some of these suggestions to see if they help.

[kito]

Hi Keat, compositionally, with the elements that are visible, it looks just fine. You have avoided splitting the image in two at the horizon and the only concern I really notice is the string of lights along the top of the bridge taking the eye out of the image at the top right.

One thing you could try, provided the bridge signs are sufficiently indistinguishable, is to flip the image horizontally to see if it looks any better. Sometimes our eyes start on the left side and with the image reversed the feeling of fading into the distance on the right might be more appealing.

Images taken at night and particularly HDR triple exposures can easily get fuzzy unless precautions are taken to ensure that the camera doesn’t move during the multiple exposures. Obviously the use of a tripod is required but you may also need to do a mirror lock-up, use a cable release, and a shutter delay timer if possible. Overexposure is really easy to occur at night when shooting bright lights against a black background which can also contribute to a fuzzy image so I would try again with a lower exposure.

Really high contrast scenes like this one may need a wider exposure range than the typical +2EV, 0EV, and -2EV we would use for a daytime HDR so you may want to experiment with up to + and – 5 EV exposure bracketing.

Hopefully you'll be able to reshoot and try some of these suggestions to see if they help.

Thanks alot for the input. Really appreciate it. Will keep them in mind when I take another shot of this bridge.

[Geoff F]

As an alternative, Keat, I wonder about cropping the left side, maybe end up around 5 x 4 ratio so the lights are more 'contained'