Marina Bay Panorama, Singapore

D A T E : DECEMBER 16, 2012
L O C A T I O N : MARINA BAY, SINGAPORE

C A M E R A : NIKON D80
L E N S : TOKINA 11-16MM F/2.8
F I L T E R : NONE
M O U N T : BENRO TRAVEL ANGEL A0695F TRIPOD
L I G H T : AMBIENT
S E T T I N G S : MANUAL MODE | ISO 100 | 10 SEC | F/8
P O S T - P R O C E S S I N G N O T E S : CURVES, THREE MANUALLY STITCHED HORIZONTAL PHOTOS

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I finally convinced my travel companions, R of The Traveling Dork and J of Jaytography, to walk from the famous Singapore Merlion all the way to the swirling lights of the Helix Bridge. I told them it really wasn’t that far and we’d have a grand time since the view’s really nice.

Stopping every few minutes to take photographs, we chanced upon a grand view of Singapore’s Marina Bay Area. R told me it would really look nice as a panorama and asked if I brought along my Sony NEX5n for the job. I did have it with me but it was just too dark for a handheld auto-stitched panorama. So I did a traditional three-photo panorama, taking mental note of the horizon since I was using a ballhead tripod. I was totally unsure if the stitch would work well since I was using an ultra wide angle lens which has a nasty case of distortion.

I came home, uploaded my photos on my computer, opened Photoshop and tried to auto-merge the three images. Total failure. It was unable to even remotely stitch them together. I tried downloading a better stitching software, another failure. The only course left is to manually stitch them together. So I hunkered down and prepared for a long session of stitching. It surprisingly took me less than five minutes to successfully merge the three images together.

I was almost ready to send a death note to R for suggesting a panoramic image and leading me to Photoshop hell, but my frustration automatically reversed into a big balloon of gratitude. Thank you The Traveling Dork. This one’s for you pare!

MY SINGAPORE TRIP IS MADE POSSIBLE BY AirAsia Philippines and AirAsiaGo