What am I doing wrong?? (pics included)

[indeedies]

Hi all,

I tried mimicking some of the great shots I've seen on here, namely the one I saw about two weeks ago with the fog and the discussion on wether or not to crop out the bush .

so when I looked out the window and saw the mist rolling in and the lights in the park with the trees I thought I'd give it a shot.

1.

2.

3.

The third is of the lighting that's in the park. I was working with some of the lights that had more of a yellow color to them but the same style pole/light situation.

I tried staying in a moderate ISO 400 but I varied throughout the night.
Tripod with a shutter speed between 1/2-1/3 seemed to have worked well and a small aperture setting to go with (f.16?)

Thanks for the help

 

[iflynething]

What are you trying to make it look like?

~Michael~

 

[bcshort]

From what I see here, it looks like you are shooting for highlights. That means your camera is exposing by attempting to make the bright light well exposed, leaving the rest of the images under exposed.

Were you using Evaluative or partial metering? Evaluative my have lessoned this, partial definitely would have if the exposure was locked in to the darker portion of the image. Of course this will mean that your lights will be over exposed.

There is no magic way to take photos at night where everything can be exposed equally without spending money on some lighting. I think you best bet is to, on a tripod:

* Take an image, expose for shadows
* Take an image, expose for lamps/highlights

When you get back, play around with blending layers in your favourite photo editing software.
Hope this helps

 

[iflynething]

Well going on what bcshort said, expose manually and that way you have more control. When at night, I haven't really found and exposure compensation that will correct "tricking" the camera to expose differently, especially in lighting like you have here.

You need to expose yourself and not let the camera think.

What are you shooting with and what are you intentions, as far as getting it to look like a certain image

~Michael~

 

[indeedies]

From what I see here, it looks like you are shooting for highlights. That means your camera is exposing by attempting to make the bright light well exposed, leaving the rest of the images under exposed.

Were you using Evaluative or partial metering? Evaluative my have lessoned this, partial definitely would have if the exposure was locked in to the darker portion of the image. Of course this will mean that your lights will be over exposed.

There is no magic way to take photos at night where everything can be exposed equally without spending money on some lighting. I think you best bet is to, on a tripod:

* Take an image, expose for shadows
* Take an image, expose for lamps/highlights

When you get back, play around with blending layers in your favourite photo editing software.
Hope this helps

I was in matrix metering with my d70s. And everything helps at this point lol.

I'm not too good with Photoshop but I'll give this ago in the next couple of nights. And how to I expose for shadows by the way?

Thanks so much for the help.

 

[indeedies]

Well going on what bcshort said, expose manually and that way you have more control. When at night, I haven't really found and exposure compensation that will correct "tricking" the camera to expose differently, especially in lighting like you have here.

You need to expose yourself and not let the camera think.

What are you shooting with and what are you intentions, as far as getting it to look like a certain image

~Michael~

I tried finding the picture that was posted on this forum a week or two ago. What I'm trying to do is make the lamp look like a real lamp with the eery(?) tree being lit from behind. I really wish I could find the pic to show you guys. I'll try again and post the link.