Downtown Dallas Texas

[Tailgunner]

This is taken from Uptown near downtown Dallas.


Nikon D7100 w/18-55 (editing done using factory editing CD)



Ross Perot: Museum of Natrual Science

 

[Gavjenks]

Composition: Good. The bottom one is a good framing of the subject itself, but it also has an awful lot of distracting streetlights and that fence on the right, as well as the lights of the buildings behind that all seem to distract without contributing artistically. It makes it look more like a hasty snapshot because of this. It looks like you could have taken the photo right on the farther side of the iron fence and eliminated most of these problems (traffic lights would be behind you or off to the left, the building lights would be hidden by your subject, etc.). The top one looks fine.

Color: The top one seems good. The bottom one seems way too red.

Exposure: Top photo is a bit underexposed. You have room in the highlights to expose more, and you should, because the shadows in your trees have lost all their detail. Not very far off though. Maybe +2/3? The bottom one has majorly blown out highlights (all the solid white glare reflections from lights). This is a major no no. Should expose this lower if you have no other options to at least capture all the detail in the building at the expense of the sky.

Sharpness: Focus itself in the center is okay, but in the top image,you are losing a lot of sharpness at the edges. Probably you were shooting wide open at 18mm would be my guess. This is inadvisable with a kit lens. Even the best of lenses wide open at the extremes of their zoom will be soft. Stop down a little bit and/or stay nearer the middle of your zoom range if you need to shoot wide open, and it will be sharper. On the bottom image, probably some combination of things is making the entire image soft. hard to say exactly what would be the biggest culprit without exif data.

In general, it is helpful if you post images with their EXIF data intact so that your focal lengths, exposure, etc. can be noted.




Where were you standing in the top photo?

 

[DGMPhotography]

This is taken from Uptown near downtown Dallas.

Nikon D7100 w/18-55 (editing done using factory editing CD)

http://s12.photobucket.com/user/SVORay/media/Nikon D3100 Misc/D71_0213_zps4592210c.jpg.html

Ross Perot: Museum of Natrual Science

http://s12.photobucket.com/user/SVORay/media/Nikon D3100 Misc/D71_0254_zps1f9f9437.jpg.html

Gavjenks nailed it. He forgot to mention distortion though. In the second image you notice how the building seems to be curving inward towards the top? Unless it's actually doing that, and I'm assuming it's not and is actually a vertical building, it's got some distortion. You can fix this in Photoshop, or by using a tilt-shift lens.

 

[Tailgunner]

Composition: Good. The bottom one is a good framing of the subject itself, but it also has an awful lot of distracting streetlights and that fence on the right, as well as the lights of the buildings behind that all seem to distract without contributing artistically. It makes it look more like a hasty snapshot because of this. It looks like you could have taken the photo right on the farther side of the iron fence and eliminated most of these problems (traffic lights would be behind you or off to the left, the building lights would be hidden by your subject, etc.). The top one looks fine.

Color: The top one seems good. The bottom one seems way too red.

Exposure: Top photo is a bit underexposed. You have room in the highlights to expose more, and you should, because the shadows in your trees have lost all their detail. Not very far off though. Maybe +2/3? The bottom one has majorly blown out highlights (all the solid white glare reflections from lights). This is a major no no. Should expose this lower if you have no other options to at least capture all the detail in the building at the expense of the sky.

Sharpness: Focus itself in the center is okay, but in the top image,you are losing a lot of sharpness at the edges. Probably you were shooting wide open at 18mm would be my guess. This is inadvisable with a kit lens. Even the best of lenses wide open at the extremes of their zoom will be soft. Stop down a little bit and/or stay nearer the middle of your zoom range if you need to shoot wide open, and it will be sharper. On the bottom image, probably some combination of things is making the entire image soft. hard to say exactly what would be the biggest culprit without exif data.

In general, it is helpful if you post images with their EXIF data intact so that your focal lengths, exposure, etc. can be noted.




Where were you standing in the top photo?

WOW...Thanks!

That's a lot to think about and work on for sure. The above photo was taken from our Uptown balcony and the 18-55mm was/is set around 24mm. Photo #2 was taken around the corner from home. I'm going to explore different shooting locations to try and eliminate the street lights. I'llcomment more on exposure later but I'll say I'm experimenting with and trying to understand the "highlight" function. I also ordered Capture Nikon NX2 which hopefully has better options than my current software.

 

[Tailgunner]

This is taken from Uptown near downtown Dallas.

Nikon D7100 w/18-55 (editing done using factory editing CD)



Ross Perot: Museum of Natrual Science

In the second image you notice how the building seems to be curving inward towards the top? Unless it's actually doing that, and I'm assuming it's not and is actually a vertical building, it's got some distortion. You can fix this in Photoshop, or by using a tilt-shift lens.

I see what you're saying but I'm fairly sure this is part of the building's design, it's got a lot of unique shapes and angles.

 

[Pallycow]

Having lived in Texas many years, I don't feel you "captured" downtown Dallas. I assume these were practice shots of some sort? Which is cool. keep at it, and then get down there and capture the city.... ;-)

 

[Tailgunner]

Having lived in Texas many years, I don't feel you "captured" downtown Dallas. I assume these were practice shots of some sort? Which is cool. keep at it, and then get down there and capture the city.... ;-)

The 1st photo is more my attempt at capturing my uptown view of downtown Dallas. It's something we see and enjoy every day. Now I do spend a lot of time photographing Downtown Dallas, both from a cityscape style view point and up close walking the streets. I'm still experimenting with different, lighting, camera settings, and locations etc. (I'm also only using basic editing software...sharpness, brightness, contrast, crop, shadow). That's where the 2nd photo comes into play. I'm really trying to develop a more artistic style photograph vs a simple P&S picture. I see what I wanna shoot artistically speaking but just have trouble conveying that to my camera.

 

[Pallycow]

I see what I wanna shoot artistically speaking but just have trouble conveying that to my camera.

Don't we all. lol ;-)

 

[Tailgunner]

I see what I wanna shoot artistically speaking but just have trouble conveying that to my camera.

Don't we all. lol ;-)

Cool, I'm not alone lol

 

[Tailgunner]

I tried to do a retake of picture number 2 last night but I'm limited by my lens angels. I was using my D7100 w/ 28-70mm f2.8 Nikon but really need something like a 10-24 or 12-24mm.

 

[Tailgunner]

Played around with a new location and my first attempt at Capture Nikon NX2. The colorful clouds reminds me a little of back home in West Texas.






Nikon D7100
Nikon 28-70mm f2.8
28mm
auto ISO 1100
1/40 F/10

 

[Pallycow]

that's a view I recall. nice capture

 

[Tailgunner]

Updated with new picture using Tokina 11-16mm 2.8 lens.

This time around I was able to get way closer and able to avoid a lot of the traffic lights. I wished traffic was flowing more so I could have gotten some light trails with it.



Here is some more misc Downtown Dallas buildings.

 

[Tailgunner]

Update: Here is an attempt at Light trails at the same location as post #11.

 

[480sparky]

Updated with new picture using Tokina 11-16mm 2.8 lens.

This time around I was able to get way closer and able to avoid a lot of the traffic lights. I wished traffic was flowing more so I could have gotten some light trails with it.

Here is some more misc Downtown Dallas buildings.

The tops of the buildings are fuzzy / OOF.