In yesterday’s post, I featured the futuristic skyline looking south from the Fullerton Bay Hotel with its lights reflecting off the swimming pool. In this post, we are looking the other way. North, taking in the vast sweep of Singapore’s most famous bay.

Of all the posts from the top of this hotel, this is my favorite. The mix of architecture and the vast expanse makes for an impressive sight.

I also had a photographic epiphany when making this photograph. I’ve been shooting urban landscapes at night for fifteen years, and creating a high-quality image required a tripod. A cumbersome piece of gear that I dragged around in the beginning. Once in-body image stabilization became popular, I ditched the tripod, but that always resulted in a diminished image. Finally, with this photo, I managed to create a high-quality image entirely hand-held. Years of technological improvements had gotten to this point.

The combination of a relatively fast lens (f2.8), image stabilization, and a full-frame lens made this possible. Pictures like this also look good on a smartphone with its night mode. However, viewed large on a 27″ screen, they don’t hold up. This picture looks fantastic on my 27″ 5K display. I created this two years ago. My current cameras will do an even better job.

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