Shot the opening night of Vivid 2023 from the Shangri-la hotel, giving a view over the whole harbour. Didn’t have a lens skirt—and didn’t think there were reflections at the time—but had to spend ages painting the reflection out just above the opera house.
The first shot is a composite from multiple points throughout the evening. The sky and most of the buildings are from a shot just before sunset, then the lights and trails of the boats are from some shots just after sunset. The fireworks are a separate shot, taken with a different lens! I didn’t plan to include this in the composite, but realised that I could take the telephoto view of the fireworks from the 18-105mm and line it up over the wide shots from earlier in the evening.
These are two very different panoramas. The second is hand-held at a moderately wide angle, as usual. The first is taken on a tripod, with the lens zoomed all the way in. This let me capture a wide-angle shot while maintaining a shallow depth of field, which you’d almost never see in a single shot.
A few of these involved fighting a bit of wind and battery life, which made me a little nervous. Very happy at how the second and last shots turned out (the two blue ones). Both are fairly substantial panoramas.