Shanghai Pudong [上海浦东]
Finally, I have a chance to go for a photo session at the Bund of Shanghai (上海外滩) Thursday night, shooting the Pudong side (浦东). It was a bad day for photo, rain, foggy and windy. I original had a buddy who wanted to join me, but finally chicken out (hehe Anthony!) when he saw the rain afternoon. When I arrived at the bund, I was quite disappointed, I could barely see the other side of the river (Pudong) because of the thick fog. I walked for more than an hour to find a good spot, only shot one photo for testing. Then when it turned dark, the light came out better, the fog was gone, or at least invisible. I was able to take some shots of the usual night scene of Shanghai bund, the old and new side. It was raining sporadically. I bought an umbrella for 10RMB which broke 10 minutes later because of light wind… but it did the job of protecting my camera under operation.
On my way to go back to my usual spot on the bund, I found an unusual building: an old lighthouse turned museum at the floor level, and a bar at the second level, and an open space bar at the third level, facing the magnificient Yan An turn and the old building of the bund. This turn is named Asia’s best turn, for the magnificient view of old and new Shanghai in the same view. Many cars slow down as soon as they reach the turn, especially tourist bus, but taxi and individual cars are slowing down there as well, the view is simply too breath-taking to be ignored. In fact many police cars are circulating in that little segment to chase the car away, otherwise they would litterally stop there for the passengers to take photo! So, it’s always been my objective to find the perfect spot to shoot this turn, and now I finally found it, on this lighthouse bar! But it was a free spot, I had to consume at least 50RMB, and pay 100RMB (1$CA = 7RMB) to go up there take photos, but I think it’s all worth it. I had the shot that I always wanted to have, it wasn’t a nice weather condition but the shot came out acceptably good quality. With a little bit of Photoshop this is almost postcard quality… 
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Regarding my new tripod system, I have a fiber carbon Benro C-158 tripod, a Really Right Stuff BH-25 LR ballhead and L-plate. I think the Benro tripod is really nice, solid, light and stable, for 1/4 the price of a Gitzo tripod. The L-plate is absolute perfect for its function, I can shoot landscape and portrait without turning the ballhead vertically, it’s light and stick to the camera body firmly. However, the BH-25 ballhead is somewhat too small and difficult to adjust for a panorama shot (multiple shots stitched together), as soon as I unlock it, with the weight of the camera it will certainly move vertically, so it’s hard to have multiple shots aligned horizontally for a nice stitch. I managed to have a photo stitched from 2 landscape shots, and another one stitched from 7 portraits photos! I also tried to stitch two photos manually using Photoshop, the result is better than the software, but very time consuming. In overall, I am happy with my current tripod system (~500$CA in total), but the ballhead is something I have to get used to, or get another one for local use. BH-25 is small and nice for travel.
Click here to see the whole Shanghai Skyline 2007 gallery.
August 16th, 2010 at 9:37 pm
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