Need lots of advice

iconnect

Hi guys went into Dublin tonight to take a few pics and they are shocking so need some help
I attached a picture and what i need to know may seem stupid but if you can help it would be appreciated.
1. For this shot what should have been my focal point
2 How best should i set the camera for this type of shot Apeture etc..
3. Should i increase my film speed as this was taken at 200 asa
Or any other advice would be appreciated
I am using a canon 30d and i used a sigma 18-200 mm lens
Thanks guys

Fajitas!

There's nothing shockingly wrong with that.

Just straighten the horizon in Ps,and give it some more contrast, and it'll be a grand photo.

I guess the focal point in this is the big building at the very back, but it's hard to have a single focal point because of the image content.

I'll assume you're using a tripod, so basically, the best thing to do with your aperture and shutter speed is to play around. Personally, I think f/11 for 2 seconds at 100iso would do it...but that's only off the top of my head.

If you have a tripod, and don't mind long exposures, I'd use 100 iso. More iso will give you more grain...all well and good if you can't afford a long shutter speed...but when you can, go for it

Fenster

I shoot at one down when I shoot cities at night, look at the photo/histogram and vary it until I get a photo I like. I don't see much wrong with your picture, I ran it through the Gimp, straightened it and converted it to black and white:


Dublin quays

For settings, I prefer ISO 100 @ f/9 in general.

iconnect

Thanks Fajitas i just look at the picture and nothing seems sharp or defined
I did use a tripod
If i try and use longer shutter speeds its always over exposed maybe i should try those speeds in full manual as i was on using shutter speed for the pics

iconnect

Gotta hand it to you Fenster you made the pic look good.
Thanks

Fajitas!

Ah, see, you gotta counteract the shutterspeed with your aperture! Keep trying though, as Fenster showed ye, it's easy to get a good pic outa it, you just have to play about.

unklerosco

Tis a good pic, got bored n messed around with it myself.. Now its my desktop bkrnd..

Zillah

I'd do something like this with it:




Straighten, levels, unsharp mask, monochrome channel mixer, little bit of burn/dodge, 4% blue colour layer for rich shadows.

I hate orange Dublin lights by the way.

As Fajitas says, a tripod/beanbag etc is essential for night time photography to counter the long exposure.

Ruu_Old

I like the orange though its probably just a tad overdone, see my meshing aboot below. Don't be afraid to have a go yourself OP. Thanks for sharing

B0rG

F/9 is an overkill, especially when focusing to infinity.

Orange is just white balance thing with underexposed pictures.

ladgie353

I don't see anything glaringly wrong with the picture, but the bank in the background would be more defined if you had taken the shot a bit earlier.
Just after sunset, when the sky is still a bit blue.

Zillah

B0rG wrote:

Orange is just white balance thing with underexposed pictures.

I'm fairly sure these lights are so orange that no amount of white balance will help. They're missing the blue end of the spectrum.

B0rG

Zillah wrote:

I'm fairly sure these lights are so orange that no amount of white balance will help. They're missing the blue end of the spectrum.

true, but we adjust the white balance to compensate for that. Then again, there is no blue or red end of spectrum on a black and white image sensor

IMO WB correction is just the simplifying version of Curves in Photoshop.

Zillah

Could you take a picture of a typical orange street in Dublin and use an appropriate WB setting to have it come out in true colour? I don't think its possible but I'm open to being convinced.

B0rG

You know yourself when you're taking underexposed shots without a flash you have noticeably dark orange tint on it, which is easily corrected with white balance? Same can be applied to the dublin nite shots.

You are correct in a sense that light from street lamps tends to be more yellowish (lower color temperature), but noone can stop you from applying curves to it and getting it to the blue end of spectrum. This is essencially how Curves working in photoshop: you have input color values on X axis and output color values on Y axis, so you manipulate any color into any color.

Any raw processing software I've seen have "thungsten" preset for WB, apply it and every color will go blue.

I'll take a look if I have something in my image stash to use as an example if I'm not too lazy tonite..

Zillah

Theres a huge difference between a warm tungsten type light and the harsh bright orange lights in dublin. Tugsten light is slightly warmer than white light and so will come out a little yellow without WB. Dublin street lights are literally bright orange. Orange juice orange.

Seriously though, will you take a shot tonight and show how WB can make it work?

elven

[RANT]

Of course you can use wb or curves to 'correct' a colour cast because of light temperature - blue to counteract the yellow/orange of tungsten, magenta for flourescent - but these common examples are they ones that still seem fairly white to the naked eye. Streetlamps, and candle light, on the other hand, appear to be yellow/orange IRL in front of you so if you were to 'correct' (yes I love being annoying and using apostrophes) these casts with wb/curves, you'd end up with a picture where the whites are white BUT it would look ridiculously unnatural, and surely you wouldn't want to give a false effect unless you wanted something that looks false on purpose... who would want a picture of a candle-lit scene that had no warmth?

It's not always about cold and calculating physics and optics, sometimes it's about mood, atmosphere and aesthetics...

[/RANT]

Zillah

Personally I think nuclear-orange is not a very appealing colour

B0rG

It's a challenge

I'm not gonna be shooting tonite that's for sure, but I'll check if I have any suitable pics to try white balance thingy.

2Valentia:

The raw image from the sensor is black in white (shades of gray to be precise), so the color casts you do with curves in the nature are similar to those you do with WB correction.

iconnect

Thanks for all the advice guys.:D

tab126

iconnect wrote:

If i try and use longer shutter speeds its always over exposed maybe i should try those speeds in full manual as i was on using shutter speed for the pics

My camera does that as well, if the metering is set to normal exposure. Have you tried just compensating down a stop? That is way easier for me than going full manual. Especially when I'm moving from building to building.

iconnect

tab126 wrote:

My camera does that as well, if the metering is set to normal exposure. Have you tried just compensating down a stop? That is way easier for me than going full manual. Especially when I'm moving from building to building.

I might just try that thanks for the advice:D