Jumeirah Islands

Weather conditions are crucial for shots of the Dubai skyline. Other cities in the world might be picturesque in various conditions, but in Dubai all we have for most of the year is a slight shroud of mist and sand. Usually it is not even really noticeable, but once you take your camera and point it at the horizon frustration begins.

However, sometimes, just a few days per year in total, the skies clear off and it is literally possible to identify individually lit windows of Burj Khalifa from a distance as far as 20km. Recently there were two of these nights and I managed to go on a hunt for good skyline shots. The second night was perfect and I got the chance to shoot this wonderfully clear image:

66mm, f13, 30s, ISO 200

Once again I've learnt: No matter how good your equipment may be, if you want to shoot a nice picture of a land- or a cityscape it all depends pretty much on the weather.

Post-processing included the following steps:

Lightroom

• Temperature: 3000K
• Tint: +8
• Exposure: 0,00
• Recovery: 30
• Fill Lights: 0
• Blacks: 6
• Brightness: +50
• Contrast: +25
• Clarity: +10
• Vibrance: 0
• Saturation: 0
• Export to Photoshop

 Photoshop

• Apply Healing Brush
• Smart Sharpen Filter (Amount: 40%, Radius 1.3px)
• Save as TIF

CaptureNX2

• Apply U-Point to the blue-lit tower (Brightness: -10)
• Convert to sRGB with perception based rendering intent
• Save as JPG

Photoshop

• Insert watermark
• Save as JPG

Cheers,
Sebastian