Night photography advice

J0hnb0y · 24 Mar 2010 at 20:35

Hi all, looking for a bit of advice on night photography. Here is a shot of Bogota in the night taken from a small stool without a cable release. Now firstly here is a problem, no tripod and no cable release. I have since aquired a small tripod which i am hoping will improve things somewhat. Its not that I dont like this picture but i feel it is missing something. Opinions please, cheers.

F9, 2.5s exposure, 120mm, ISO 250. Lens, Nikon 24-120mm. (Just writing this i suspect in order for a better shot i need a smaller aparture and longer exposure...)

Thanks for looking

asim18 · 24 Mar 2010 at 20:41

J0hnb0y said:
Its not that I dont like this picture but i feel it is missing something. Opinions please, cheers.

I think it's missing simplicity and order. It's a very chaotic image with loads going on and nothing which stands out as the main focus of the image.

J0hnb0y · 24 Mar 2010 at 20:44

haha I think you may have just described Colombia in a few short words! Its just not that great a picture right? Technically do you think it could use a longer exposure/smaller aparture? Some of the lights are a bit...bright

mcc49 · 24 Mar 2010 at 20:54

Theres no hint of blurring in the picture so a tripod and cable release wont help much in the same scenario. I noticed in the top left, bottom left and top right corner there's a strip where the colours seems much sharper, why is that? It looks like you put a dirty filter over the photo

Some white balancing and curves adjustment should make the photo better, it seems too yellow right now.

lucklessloser · 24 Mar 2010 at 22:38

mcc49 said:
I noticed in the top left, bottom left and top right corner there's a strip where the colours seems much sharper, why is that?

I have to admit that's the first thing i noticed too.

I think the picture captures what the city is about tbh which is probably why you (and I) like it but making it a little sharper and toning down the brighter parts of the image a touch would make a huge difference.

J0hnb0y · 25 Mar 2010 at 05:33

actually i thought that was more to do with the crappy screen on my netbook. not sure what is hapenning there. Possibly a PS export glitch but never seen one of those before! Nope, no filters involved. I shall go to the same spot next week and perhaps swap to my Tokina 50-135mm. According to a Mr Ken Rockwell the Nikon 24 - 120mm is one of their worst lenses ever...if of course you believe much of what he says. Not had too much practice with it but so far it seems a-ok to me...

D.P. · 25 Mar 2010 at 07:45

Can use a timer instead of cable release. Try placing a bean-bag under camera to dampen vibrations.

A small tripod is probably worse than putting the camera on a stool. (cheap small tripods only increase vibrations).

mcc49 · 25 Mar 2010 at 09:51

J0hnb0y said:
haha I think you may have just described Colombia in a few short words! Its just not that great a picture right? Technically do you think it could use a longer exposure/smaller aparture? Some of the lights are a bit...bright

I think a longer exposure, maybe 15s+, would make the photo less 'busy and chaotic' as it would turn the numerous short head/taillight light trail into a long flowing one across the photo and as mentioned by another member, use the self timer if you are scared of inducing camera shakes from pressing the shutter.

orderoftheflame · 25 Mar 2010 at 10:05

I think it would be better focusing on the road. The whole right half of the photo seems to have nothing interesting going on apart from that one odd blue light for me.

D.P. · 25 Mar 2010 at 10:12

overall, the composition just doesn't work. This is why the picture is not nice to view. Where are we supposed to look? What is the subject of the photo, where should we start lookin, where should our attention be drawn to?

martinturner · 25 Mar 2010 at 10:30

I think the only way you could have improved 'that composition' would be to have lengthened the exposure enough to properly capture the the curve of the main road running through the shot with the lights of the cars. The issue with lengthening the exposure would be the other lights, but if you were to use a strong ND filter you should be able to get a 'swoosh' running through the main part of the shot whilst retaining control of the other lights in the shot. The light in the bottom right of the shot would still be a problem as its much too bright, but I would crop that out. I would probably square crop this from the left to lose the dark black bush. That immediately makes the shot look better.

Thats just what I would have done to make that shot better; it would still not be great though. I agree with all thats been said, you have no focal point here. Pick a focal point and shoot that, this just looks like a mass of lights with nothing of interest to really look at. The buildings are very uninteresting too which does not help.

Hope this helps.

The_TailGunner · 25 Mar 2010 at 12:36

ive been playing around with urban night photography a bit lately, and i seem to get the best results by:

1) using a tripod. even a cheap one (just dont extend the centre column!). (avoid the ultra-light fold up ones in my opinion. i cant see how those could be stable in any way!)

2) iso 100

3) aperture around f/10-ish ( im using cheap lenses and f/9-f/11 keeps things nice and sharp)

4) use the 10s self timer and mirror lockup

5) 30s exposure (though depending on the speed of the cars, you may need considerably less time to get nice light trails)

this may not work for you, but it seems to be a setup that works really well for my 1000d with the 18-55 kit lens (non-IS), and ive had some nice urban night shots as a result.