Thanksgiving 2011 - National Harbor

This Thanksgiving we spent the Friday night at the National Harbor in D.C. After a nice dinner we took a stroll at the marina, waiting for a big Christmas tree to be lit and subsequent fireworks. It took too long though and it was quite chilly so we headed home before the tree lighting ceremony and the fireworks took place.
Nevertheless, I got some nice night time pictures of the waterfront and the Gaylord Convention Center. This was my first time to take high dynamic range (HDR) pictures at night, so this was a fun experiment for me. Some of the photos turned out very beautifully.

Here we go:

 Waiting for the Christmas tree to be lit. Many people came out this night and a small orchestra was playing Christmas songs (wayyy too early for my taste). Can you see the big man lying in the sand?

A photo of the waterfront and the Gaylord Convention Center in the background. The picture has an interesting feel to it, because I blackened out the sky completely. My first experiment with night time HDRs taught me that background noise in the night sky, especially from the overexposed images, is greatly amplified during the tone-mapping process. Most of the pictures would look terrible if one wouldn't post-process the sky in some way after the tone-mapping process.

Another angle at the water front with the still unlit Christmas tree in the background. I love the strong colors the HDRs produce at night. In this picture the sky was not so much of a problem, however the water had to be darkened severely. Much as with the sky, the tonemapping will brighten the water to a muddy brown color and greatly enhance background noise, dirt, and floating objects, which has to be corrected.

A photo of the atrium of the Gaylord Convention Center and Resort. They had a great lightshow and a Christmas Market in the atrium, together with many attractions and events for children.