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I don't get how this picture was taken: http://500px.com/photo/5956842

I know this is a blended shot and that the city lights are brought out in post but my questions is, why don't the city lights blow out the star details on exposing for 180 seconds as mentioned in the description? Is there some trick to accomplish this?

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    \$\begingroup\$ The photographer notes in the description: ' I separately captured the bridge about 2-3 shots with different exposure and blended them later with the star trails shot in Photoshop.' In other words, the bridge shots weren't 180 second exposures. \$\endgroup\$ Sep 11, 2012 at 19:59
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    \$\begingroup\$ @ElendilTheTall - Convert to answer! \$\endgroup\$
    – dpollitt
    Sep 11, 2012 at 20:05

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The photographer notes in the description: 'I separately captured the bridge about 2-3 shots with different exposure and blended them later with the star trails shot in Photoshop.' In other words, the bridge shots weren't 180 second exposures.

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  • \$\begingroup\$ Yes, that's right. But if we expose for 180 sec for the sky, wouldn't the bridge/city lights also get exposed for the same time and hence over-power the light from the stars? Is there a way to partially block the those lights and expose only for the sky? \$\endgroup\$
    – readdear
    Sep 13, 2012 at 16:56
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    \$\begingroup\$ As he states, he has blended the shots in Photoshop, in a similar way to the method described here: photo.blogoverflow.com/2012/06/… He has taken the sky shots at 180 seconds, and the bridge shots at, say, 20 seconds, and composited them together into one shot. \$\endgroup\$ Sep 13, 2012 at 19:52

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