Lanterns are everywhere during this time of year and the biggest challenge is getting an image that stands out. Here is one of my favorites because of the angle and color. There are a few elements that make this style of shot work and I will try and be as detailed as possible.

First of all this is an HDR shot but, it is a very controlled on at that. I will explain later after I explain the set up and whatnot, I just wanted to prepare you for that as some might not have noticed that it was.

The main part of this photo is the angle in which it was taken. I set my tripod up on the shortest setting. Basically, I just opened the legs and sat it down. I then framed the shot so that there was a little break in the pattern making it a little more interesting to the eye than just a straight flood of color (which also would have worked too!). If you notice the rich blue popping out from between the lanterns, well that is because I timed this shot to get the blue hour. These days you are looking to hit blue hour around 7 to 7:30 pm, so try to be at your location a little bit earlier and get set up.

As I said before, this is an HDR shot, so I have bracketed the shots about 2 stops apart and used a cable release to make sure there was minimal camera shake. Alternatively, you can set your camera to timer (what you would use for taking a shot that you want to be in) and if you are using a Canon, it will fire all three bracketed shots for you without having to press the button each time.

Once I get on the computer, I load the images into Photmatix and tone map them. What you are looking to do here is bring out the colors but not go way over the top. I usually bump up the saturation and the strength to create a rich effect, but here you have to be really careful (be controlled). I adjusted the white and black sliders to bring out more of the sky and also create more contrast. I kept the strength around 83 but dropped the saturation to around 50 or so to not blowout the reds.

You really have to be careful with the saturation and especially the reds. With this shot, the reds are extremely strong and thus when brought into aperture or photoshop, I had to desaturate the red a lot to maintain balance. The other tip is that if you find that you are getting a purple sky, cool your photo down by either adjusting the temperature slider or using a cooling filter. When all is said and done, add a light sharpening layer and you are done.