Learning the perfect nightscape shot.

Stinky

Stinky

Stinky

Soldato
Joined
28 Mar 2005
Posts
9,250
Hi guys.

Ive just been to Bangkok and stayed in a place with a roof top bar / restaurant so took advantage for my amateur photography skills and would like some tips / thoughts on these pics below.

I have adjusted the saturation and gamma on these to bring out the lights.

What do you think? other than that its as it left the camera.

F22, ISO100, 30second exposure.

Picture1_zpsad0bfca5.jpeg


Picture_zps1d21f768.jpeg
 
You don't necessarily need F/22 to shoot night shots or landscapes. I usually shoot them at the around F/8 for my night shots. When you are shooting a wide angle and the subject is so far away, F/22 is not necessary. The lens is actually not as sharp at that aperture as well.

But the most obvious thing is that it looks very blury. Processing aside, both are suffering from camera shake. Did you use a tripod? (not that you necessaruly need one but it helps)

I took this 2 weeks ago, resting the camera on a railing on the edge of a Victoria Peak in Hong Kong, balanced by a bit of Starbucks napkin under the lens (on the screw in the Tilt Shift) to get the angle I wanted.

I forgot the exact setting but it's only like 10 seconds or so exposure at F/5.6 or so.

I5N3PMul.jpg


Sorry for the compression, had to DL off FB.
 
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thats a great shot. this is my first time playing with night shots. so am all about the learning.

i balanced this on a wall with the strap under the lens ha, with 2sec timer to avoid shake. so not sure where it has come from :(
 
If time permits, you should always check to see if the photo is sharp and in focus before moving on. With a shot like this you have all the time in the world. You can even adjust the white balance in camera instead of using AWB so save some work in post.
 
is there anything i can do to improve these shots? i am just uploading another night shot i did. but now you have mentioned it they all seem slightly blury ha. time was short and i had nothing to get them off the card at the time :(
 
There is not much you can do to fix the camera shake i am afriad. I mean you can use the clarity slider in LR or unsharpmask in PS but it's not realyl solving the problem to be honest.
 
Not got anything to add as Ray has pretty much covered it all already.

Have you got an uncompressed original you could upload so I can have a play and maybe give you some tips regarding the processing?
 
ManCuBuS said:
Not got anything to add as Ray has pretty much covered it all already.

Have you got an uncompressed original you could upload so I can have a play and maybe give you some tips regarding the processing?
Click to expand...

yea no problem will get that up now.

here another day time one i really liked

photo_zpsfa92be02.jpg
 
Stinky said:
is there anything i can do to improve these shots? i am just uploading another night shot i did. but now you have mentioned it they all seem slightly blury ha. time was short and i had nothing to get them off the card at the time :(
Click to expand...

I mean on the LCD. Just zoom in at 100%.
 
few more originals here, some have dodgy bits of building in shot ha.

if you want the original emailed to play with ManCuBuS let me know

IMG_4050_zps24cb6054.jpg


IMG_4053_zps10ea40e8.jpg


IMG_4055_zps3c7c1d7c.jpg
 
As Raymond says, I wouldn't shoot at f/22 unless absolutely necessary which is rare. However, if you are shooting landscapes and have a strong foreground feature, which you typically do want in landscape work) then you want to stop down a lot, even so you should learn how to use hyperfocal focusing techniques to maxmise the aperture and reduce diffraction.


For the above shots f/8 would have been optimal really.
And as pointed out, they are very soft, a good quality tripod will go a long way in helping any static shots like this. For something small and portable use a heavy been-bag.

As well as a shutter/timer delay you should also use Mirror Lock Up (if your camera supports it) or exposure delay. Shutter/timer delay will reduce vibrations from your finger depressing the shutter button but the mirror movement causes a slap so you want to have a delay between the mirror moving out the way and the exposure being taken. On my D90 the exposure delay is hidden in the menus a little way.
 
As above after having a look at the full size originals there are a couple of thing to consider for the next time.

f/22 has softened the image quality quite a bit with diffraction, also the noise in the shadows and the transitional areas of light and dark is very pronounced due the length of the exposure time.

Because of the above and some added camera shake, any fine detail has been destroyed.

However for a bit of Facebook / Forum sharing not all is lost and 2 mins in Lightroom with the jpg's you sent me gave me these.

I've dropped the exposure, added some contrast, reduced highlights, slight +ve saturation, sharpened (quite a lot!), added noise reduction, straightened and added white border.


Bangkok lights by m.ww, on Flickr


Bangkok lights 3 by m.ww, on Flickr


Bangkok lights 2 by m.ww, on Flickr
 
Wow that looks good!

I'll defo shot at around f8 now then! Thanks a lot for that! Got myself a tripod on the way now to! Just need to find some nice sunset ps etc
 
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