Late night in the office

[Alpha_7]

Trying to finish everything off before we fly out, so while I was waiting for a call back I took a few photo's... (kate did too!). Unfortunately the "magic blue hour" was well and truely gone, and it was way to windy for my poor tripod but here are some of the better pics.







Please let me know what you think.

[stubbsy]

Craig

First one is a little too light. I'd bump the contrast to make the sky a little darker, otherwise it's pretty good. Next time I'd try shooting from the balcony as the table & chairs are a little distracting

#2 - Nice concept, but it doesn't quite work. There is just too much table. Try cropping it horizontally in line with the edge of the bottom most chair. The clouds in this one work a treat however and I think it will repay some effort at enhancing the image.

#3 - this is better than your first attempt at this, but still a little too abstract for my tastes.

[Alpha_7]

Peter : There are all straight from the camera (just got home) so I will have a tinker with them... any suggests are gladly welcome.

#1 Has a lot more light as it's a 20 second exposure.

#2 Is actually 1 shot out of 3 very similar shots.. I'll try a crop and see how it works... at this size I think the effect is a little lost..

#3 First attempt ? I'm not sure which shot you were referring too ( I know alot of my photo's come out like this).

I didn't want to risk extending the legs of my tripod (too damn windy) so I had it sitting on the table but it still didn't have enough height to get over the railings etc

[stubbsy]

Peter : There are all straight from the camera (just got home) so I will have a tinker with them... any suggests are gladly welcome.

OK - Bump contrast & darken #1 so the bits of table are just a silhouette to frame the bottom of the image. That may work.

#2 - forget this one, the newer shot is exactly what I was talking about, but again bump the contrast a bit (but not so we can't see it's a table since it's part of the image for this one)

#3 First attempt ? I'm not sure which shot you were referring too ( I know alot of my photo's come out like this).

my Sony I just checked and it was actually a shot of Doug's I recalled (this thread)

[wendellt]

Hi craig

for a 20 second exposure you should be getting some real dynamic range in ambient colours reflected off the clouds from the cityscape, but your images look dark and lacking vibrance, what fstop did you use, for this sort of landscape f8 should be optimal, I know even an 8 sec exposure with ISO200 f8 should produce a very pretty vibrant night picture blue hour or not.

Late at night if i miss the blue hour i frame cityscape shots tight searching for locations with bright ambient lightsources nearby so they compensate for the lack of light even at 20 secs you can get a vibrant image:

see here: http://www.zeduce.org/images/swish/02.htm

half of taking a good night pic is taking the time to search for good light, places in the city that produce dynamic light and elements in the city that directly reflect these light sources like glass buildings wet surfaces, reflectivee surfaces, cloudy skies at night etc.

I think you need a stable tripod, pay more attention to the weather conditions and use delayed shutter release to minimise camera shake, wind and an unstable tripod with vibration from you pressing the shutter will make the resulting image blurry and undefined.

If you want that dynamic night shot you should pursue the blue hour to the best of your ability it really makes a difference

see here: http://www.zeduce.org/images/par/19.htm

[Alpha_7]

Thanks for the feed back, the EXif data for that 20 second exposure is as follows. I'm working on getting a better tripod, hopefully for Xmas or a little after. I do use delay shutter (I use the timer to take any of my night shots, that are tripod mounted) so I've atleast taken that vibration out of the mix.

Should I be shooting in a different mode (maybe AP priority ?) for night shoots ? I usually use the Shutter Priority or if I'm lazy the Night Scene mode.

Thanks again
--------------------------------
File: - DSC_0020-01.jpg

Make - NIKON CORPORATION
Model - NIKON D70
XResolution - 300.00/0.00
YResolution - 300.00/0.00
ResolutionUnit - Inch
ExifOffset - 90
ISOSpeedRatings - 400
ShutterSpeedValue - 20 seconds
ApertureValue - F 24.99
ExposureTime - 20 seconds
FNumber - 25.00
ExposureProgram - Shutter priority
DateTimeOriginal - 2005:10:13 19:24:43
DateTimeDigitized - 2005:10:13 19:24:43

[birddog114]

I know this has been talked,
Whatever you do, shooting at night, a tripod is well recommended regardless the weather.
Candid shooting or other quick snaps do not require, but definitely with landscape or architecture.
Handholding techniques should be very steady if you want to try with your skills.
Save up my friend, get a decent tripod, not mean: expensive and flashy or fancy, but at least these tools will help you out with sharpness.

[wendellt]

craig there is your problem your using shutter priority

when you set it for 20 secs camera automatically selects the highest fstop to compensate for overexposure
which is:
ApertureValue - F 24.99

weird because i thought the kit lens only goes up to f22

anyway for night shots f24 is too stopped down, you will get a dark dull image and get a blurry image due to refraction at f24

I slways shoot in complete MANUAL with long exposure
f/8, 20 seconds ISO 200

also try f/11, 30 secs,

but for a true to life night shot 8 seconds f/8 is optimal

[Alpha_7]

I know this has been talked,
Whatever you do, shooting at night, a tripod is well recommended regardless the weather.
Candid shooting or other quick snaps do not require, but definitely with landscape or architecture.
Handholding techniques should be very steady if you want to try with your skills.
Save up my friend, get a decent tripod, not mean: expensive and flashy or fancy, but at least these tools will help you out with sharpness.

No worries Birddog I'm more then convinced, come Xmas time / or Early January I hope to have a Benro tripod and a nice Ball head to boot... if I've ultra lucky a SB800 too..but that could just be me dreaming...

[birddog114]

Alpha_7,

Pls. note: this is a bloody expensive hobby!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Alpha_7]

 LOL, thanks Birddog
I've been slowly getting that idea... I still have a print out of all your lens prices hanging next to my LCD at work.. just so in my spare time I can lust over pretty lenses...

[Potatis]

my Sony I just checked and it was actually a shot of Doug's I recalled (this thread)

Hey thanks for the link to my post Stubbsy! But I'm disappointed you think less of my photo than Craig's! Mine has got THREE suburbs in it, I went to A LOT of trouble to get them in the one photo! And the colours are SO pretty! Also, mine has a border which makes it classy! Hahaha. Seriously now though, my photo was just for fun, too abstract for me too, and I regard it as crap.

Doug

[Alpha_7]

Well I'll blame having bad handheld technique on the reason mine's so abstract...

[Potatis]

Craig, I don't think there's anything wrong with a photo you learn from.

[stubbsy]

my Sony I just checked and it was actually a shot of Doug's I recalled (this thread)

Hey thanks for the link to my post Stubbsy! But I'm disappointed you think less of my photo than Craig's! Mine has got THREE suburbs in it, I went to A LOT of trouble to get them in the one photo! And the colours are SO pretty! Also, mine has a border which makes it classy! Hahaha. Seriously now though, my photo was just for fun, too abstract for me too, and I regard it as crap.

Doug

Doug, must be the week for confessing about crap images. Matt (rokkstar) said some of his were doggy doo too and I took him to task. Nothing you take is crap. It's just not as good as your other stuff or not as good as you'd like it to be. Read what I said to Matt here PS: I agree you had more suburbs than Craig, but he had more buildings discernible.

[Potatis]

Thanks Peter, you are right. I used the wrong word really, because I didn't mean to sound like it was a bad photo and I was disappointed with it. The photo was taken in the spirit of having some good fun. It's not our cup of tea, but it isn't really "crap" because Genista loves it, and it's one of her favourites. (She MADE me post it, yes I am blaming HER! ) Genista took a lot of photos like that at Blues Point (not that she had much choice with the wind and her camera/tripod , but she was doing photos like this deliberately). One person's trash is another's treasure I guess.