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Need Help For Night Shots  
User currently offlineLIPH From Italy, joined May 2004, 848 posts, RR: 1
Posted (2 years 11 months 2 weeks 4 days 8 hours ago) and read 528 times:

Hy there,
recently I've challenged myself in trying to make some good, long exposure night shots, but they've always turned out bad quality :

http://img480.imageshack.us/img480/2096/learjetcheatterraajpg2xq3.jpg
http://img135.imageshack.us/img135/2310/ryanairdinottejpg390091ob4.jpg

At this point I need your help in trying to find out what's really wrong with them an get rid of the mistakes : if it's something more technical (exposure, aperture etc), something i can correct in the post-processing workflow, or it's something more linked to the weather conditions (it was always cloudy/grey sky). Any suiggestion is appreciated. Thanks in advance.
Regards


Life sucks. Then you die. Live fast, die young.
7 replies: All unread, jump to last
 
User currently offlineLIPH From Italy, joined May 2004, 848 posts, RR: 1
Reply 1, posted (2 years 11 months 2 weeks 3 days 16 hours ago) and read 487 times:

...PS
I also noted that those yellow lights present on the tarmac tend to give an overall soft impression to all the picture, even if shooting at the lowest ISO setting (eg 100) and lowest aperture...I cannot figure out how to get rid of this overall bad softness...(is something you can work with PS or is better something you can work with settings?). Thanks for advices.
Regards


Life sucks. Then you die. Live fast, die young.
User currently onlineStealthZ From Australia, joined Feb 2005, 4080 posts, RR: 52
Reply 2, posted (2 years 11 months 2 weeks 3 days 15 hours ago) and read 470 times:
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Frankly,
Not a lot wrong with your settings in either photo,
The first one suffers a little bit from timing.. the plane seems to arrive from "nowhere". IMHO head on landing shots are a problem because the apparent motion of the A/C is so slow the landing lights tend to burn out. Not sure what aperture you used but maybe stop down even more and expose for longer, likely still get the burnt out lights but not the disruptive start.
2nd pic, nothing wrong with that except picking the night, the softness is almost certainly caused by a fine mist. The most powerful image processing system on the planet is the eye & the brain, the ability to filter things like a fine mist is great.. unless you are trying to photograph the scene. One of the skills needed by a photographer is looking past what the brain thinks you want to see.
Cheers


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User currently offlineEMA747 From United Kingdom, joined Jun 2006, 871 posts, RR: 2
Reply 3, posted (2 years 11 months 2 weeks 3 days 10 hours ago) and read 444 times:

Just out of interest what were your settings? I have tried to get similar shots but couldnt get the settings right.

Andy S


Failing doesn’t make you a failure. Giving up and refusing to try again does!
User currently offlineLIPH From Italy, joined May 2004, 848 posts, RR: 1
Reply 4, posted (2 years 11 months 2 weeks 3 days 9 hours ago) and read 433 times:

Quoting EMA747 (Reply 3):

I was on "Time priority mode" : 15" exposure time with the smallest aperture (cannot remember how much).
Regards


Life sucks. Then you die. Live fast, die young.
User currently offlineEadster From Australia, joined Jan 2005, 2190 posts, RR: 22
Reply 5, posted (2 years 11 months 2 weeks 3 days 4 hours ago) and read 415 times:

I always seem to find long exposure shots more appealing right on last light. This way you can get awesome effects and make great use of the fading light. This is another way of getting around the problems mist at night cause.

I did notice on the second one, there are some weird light effects that look long and point verticle. Did you have a filter on the lens? If so, I'd suggest removing it. I get similar effects from my lens but disappear once the filter has been removed.

I would suggest too, shooting a few of these type of shots on either Av or Tv modes, to get a feel for the combinations used to get these kind of shots. Once you get the hang of this then you can roughly work out what settings will work and then even go further to use the B mode. Here you and be the judge on how long the shutter stays open for.

This shot is a good example on someone who has the night shots nailed, and I'm sure Julian won't mind me plugging his shot...


View Large View Medium
Click here for bigger photo!

Photo © Julian Adams



User currently offlineLIPH From Italy, joined May 2004, 848 posts, RR: 1
Reply 6, posted (2 years 11 months 2 weeks 3 days 4 hours ago) and read 411 times:

Quoting Eadster (Reply 5):
This shot is a good example on someone who has the night shots nailed, and I'm sure Julian won't mind me plugging his shot...

Damn ! Incredible !! What was the exposure time there ?!?
Anyway I'd tend to avoid the yellow/orange look of long exposure, but still have to find the way for...

Regards


Life sucks. Then you die. Live fast, die young.
User currently offlineEadster From Australia, joined Jan 2005, 2190 posts, RR: 22
Reply 7, posted (2 years 11 months 2 weeks 3 days 1 hour ago) and read 399 times:

Quoting LIPH (Reply 6):

Damn ! Incredible !! What was the exposure time there ?!?

Around 40 mins I believe. Make sure to set the white balance accordingly to avoid a colour cast.

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