Night Photos C&C Please

paul-2008

Only new to photography recently, would like some opinions on the photos below. The photos are of Waterford City. Shot using a Canon 1000D. Thanks

magicbastarder

in the first one, i'd angle the camera higher; there's little interest in the foreground, so i'd use more sky.

colblimp

Not bad efforts. The most important thing I'd say is I'd like to see straight horizons as they're both sloping to the left.

magicbastarder

that's probably the lie of the land; waterford is on a tidal river.

ronanc15

magicbastarder wrote: »

that's probably the lie of the land; waterford is on a tidal river.

Wouldn't think so, the skyline looks a bit off in the front one compared to the second

Hugh_C

I like em both. If it had been me, I'd have messed with the white balance a bit, to give it a colder/bluer look. This can be done in the camera or in post.

kelly1

Out of curiosity Paul, did you use a tripod? And what ISO and aperture did you use?

paul-2008

kelly1 wrote: »

Out of curiosity Paul, did you use a tripod? And what ISO and aperture did you use?

Yeah i used a tripod, it was on a mound of clay though and it was very dark so it was hard to get it level.
For the both pictures the ISO was 800 and f5.6, this is what opanda is telling me anyway, i cant remember off the top of my head as these were taken a while ago!
Thanks everyone for the feedback so far!

kelly1

paul-2008 wrote: »

Yeah i used a tripod, it was on a mound of clay though and it was very dark so it was hard to get it level.
For the both pictures the ISO was 800 and f5.6, this is what opanda is telling me anyway, i cant remember off the top of my head as these were taken a while ago!
Thanks everyone for the feedback so far!

ok, was thinking the ISO was a bit high, that's why I asked. I'd drop the ISO to 100 and use a smaller aperture, say f/16. Focus about 1/3 of the way into the scene to get max depth of field.

colblimp

magicbastarder wrote: »

that's probably the lie of the land; waterford is on a tidal river.

What?!! Tell me you were joking when you posted that? All horizons are level, no matter whether the river is tidal or not. Also, look at the houses, would you buy one that wasn't level? :rolleyes:

magicbastarder

colblimp wrote: »

What?!! Tell me you were joking when you posted that? All horizons are level, no matter whether the river is tidal or not. Also, look at the houses, would you buy one that wasn't level? :rolleyes:

i didn't say the horizon wasn't level, i meant the land slopes towards the river.

either way, if they are out of skew, it doesn't look too offputting.

colblimp

magicbastarder wrote: »

i didn't say the horizon wasn't level, i meant the land slopes towards the river.

either way, if they are out of skew, it doesn't look too offputting.

Ah, gotcha. The second pic you could possibly get away with but the first one has a bad slope on it, the pic, not the land down to the river. Either way, it's an easy fix in PS or LR.

joeKel73

paul-2008 wrote: »

Yeah i used a tripod, it was on a mound of clay though and it was very dark so it was hard to get it level.
For the both pictures the ISO was 800 and f5.6, this is what opanda is telling me anyway, i cant remember off the top of my head as these were taken a while ago!
Thanks everyone for the feedback so far!

You only need to use high ISO if you're shooting in low light and don't want a shutter speed so low that it'd cause camera shake.

Since you're on a tripod and steadiness isn't an issue - put the ISO to its minimum, you'll get much higher quality. Also use the self-timer on the shots, so any vibration from you pressing the button will have settled before it takes the shot.

I'd recommend putting it into shutter priority and trying some long exposures (10-30 seconds).

kelly1

Why shutter priority Joe? How will you control DOF with Shutter priority? Manual is the way to go.

joeKel73

Because the OP said they're new to photography and I think it's a good idea to get comfortable with both shutter/aperture priority modes before moving to manual.

Could use aperture priority just as well, if DOF if your priority.

paul-2008

J o e wrote: »

You only need to use high ISO if you're shooting in low light and don't want a shutter speed so low that it'd cause camera shake.

Since you're on a tripod and steadiness isn't an issue - put the ISO to its minimum, you'll get much higher quality. Also use the self-timer on the shots, so any vibration from you pressing the button will have settled before it takes the shot.

I'd recommend putting it into shutter priority and trying some long exposures (10-30 seconds).

it was pitch dark when these were taken, thats why ISO was so high! in the first pic exposure was 10 sec and in the second one it was 30!

kelly1

paul-2008 wrote: »

it was pitch dark when these were taken, thats why ISO was so high! in the first pic exposure was 10 sec and in the second one it was 30!

You'd probably want a graduated filter to balance the exposure of the lights with the river. And it sounds like you'd need a cable release too so you can use the "bulb" setting and not shake the camera. I think the lights are over exposed in your shot tbh.

paul-2008

kelly1 wrote: »

You'd probably want a graduated filter to balance the exposure of the lights with the river. And it sounds like you'd need a cable release too so you can use the "bulb" setting and not shake the camera. I think the lights are over exposed in your shot tbh.

yeah i have since bought a cable release, must try go take these pics again. See if i can improve!
Thanks for the feedback! Didnt expect this much at all

PixelTrawler

Go up to f/11 or f/16 if you can to get the Depth of Focus nice and big as the second image is quite soft (distant lights)

Straighten it up as best you can and tools like lightroom are great for levelling in post anyway...

Get the iso as low as possible to cut noise - doesnt matter at night, since you can run any length of exposures with a cable release - you might be looking at several minutes but experiment and see...