Night time C&C

Chorcai

I headed out tonight and took a few of these shots, I am stuck with the lens I have a Canon EF 28-80 (3.5-5.6 58mm) just to ask what would the best set of filters for night time shots ?

I think they look ok, the exif info will be on the images cause I know ye guys like them :P If not let me know I'll add the info.

Also my monitor is acting up so I cant really tell if colours are right. If any one could guide me on that matter would be great

Masada

I like the composition of the first one but i would adjust the white balance to loose some of that yellowness, Its been a while since ive used a canon but I think theres a "tungsten" or similar option in there that'll give you the effect. On a Nikon you just select through the K ratings.

A bit like this,
I think it looks a lot better in a natural kind of colour. maybe a bit more light in the sky with a longer exposure would add to it more too.

Chorcai

It is flood lit alright with HUGE lamps, not the best weather tonight slighty foggy as well. I setting @ f22/ISo100/30sec.
Thanks for the info Masada.

If anyone could help me out with the monitor thing... below screen shot.



I hope Baz you dont mind, it's just I seen that guy the other day playing so I wanted to see what settings you used.

AnCatDubh

Usual Disclaimer - the following points are pure opinion and may not be theoretically correct (but it is my opinion). Take from it what you will and if you think i'm talking bull then the comments should be treated as such

#1 - The flood lighting imho doesn't do the scene any favours - white balance correction would bring it back to a better colour / a more appropriate grey.

How did you stabilise the camera? At 100% it looks a little soft. When you have a 30second exposure you need to be really careful on camera shake / vibration / wind blowing even. Assuming it was perfectly still, you were shooting at the extremities - 28mm focal length which depending on the lens (I don't know the specific one you used), mightn't be the sharpest. Mind you that is pixel peeping for you.

Your crop to the top is incredibly tight for such a scene. Your building lines fall away too as is normal behaviour / to be expected of lens optics. This would require some correction in pp if it were an image you were married to.

Overall for me - I'm not grabbed by the scene tbh. To my eye, (and its only my eye), the scene is quite unbalanced by the tower which in attempting to photograph it creates a lot of negative space in the sky. Negative space can be creative but I don't think it appropriate in this circumstance.

To improve, maybe try earlier evening / twilight when you might still go for longer exposure but may pick up some detail in the sky eliminating the negative space.

#2 - As with #1 the flood lighting doesn't catch my attention as being aesthetically pleasing. The bush in front of it is really distracting. The floodlights have given wicked shadows above the large circular window onto the tower. With not being able to capture the back part of the building it just looks incomplete.

Sometimes there actually isn't an image within a scene or it may not be possible to catch an appropriate image from a scene. Eitherways, sometimes you may have to just admit defeat. Don't worry - I seldom do and often disappoint myself

#3 I actually really like this as an abstract - well you need to look a little while to figure it out which is good that it grabs the attention. Perhaps slightly wider to take in a little more of the line in the bottom right hand side might have improved a little. But, this is quite a nice image imho - it suggests speed, motion, distance, vroom, etc. Again if there was a little more to it (wider focal length) you would have gotten the bend on the beam of light which appears semi cropped.

#4 is curious but doesn't particularly grab me. I think the balance between the red and white light is off which to improve would have needed for the white light (headlamps) to have travelled nearer to you. The large negative space doesn't have specific purpose imho here and could be cropped somewhat.

#5 Here you've gotten the width I referred to earlier but there's something odd about the headlamps which are visible in the top right (just down a bit) - a bit too defined (circles) among the lines The parallels are nicely spotted imho (path, white, red and amber lights) but was there much in terms of overhead street lighting? I'm sensing an orangy hue to it (buildings in the background) which i'm guessing would be street lighting perhaps. Selection of scene can be king for some of these shots or sometimes correction in post processing.

So #3 does it for me. I'm liking it lots. The remainder imho need a bit of work.

Well done for doing the C&C thing. It isn't easy to have people criticise your work. Hopefully you'll get something out of what i've suggested above. If nothing else - they are points to think about and why I might be wrong

Cheers.