First attempt at exposure blending

[sam_justice]

Two exposures, the beach, stones and sky. The other being the pier, rush job in PS due to the fact I'm terrible at painting.
Criticisms? BTW I know I didn't use a lens hood, I broke it this was more of an experiment than a composition.

Also, it might be my lens (D50 kit lens, too poor to afford anything better at the moment) but take a look at this, do you think it's correctly exposed? I'm terrible at judging low light exposures it's my biggest crux. Does anyone have any tips? The lens isn't very sharp at all.

 

[sam_justice]

bump?

 

[SrBiscuit]

poor forum etiquette to bump after only 30min. :greenpbl:

moving on...

the comp is pretty cool. def get the whole "beach near a city vibe."

the kit lens youre refering to is the 18-55? truth be told, that's a great little lens...especially for a kit.

the bottom pic might be correctly exposed depending on metering mode and whatnot, but the lack of sharpness is likely more your inability to stay still than it is the lens. a setting THAT dark is going to need some serious shutter time to expose correctly (a fast lens and high iso might help the situation, but the iso performance on entry level dslrs is usually crappola), thereby rendering every shake you can try so hard not to give it.

tripods are so key for this type of shooting.

tri
pod








tripod!

 

[sam_justice]

...? I know.. this was shot on a tripod

 

[timlair]

Calm down big guy. No need to get offended so early ha. What were your settings if you dont mind my asking. And what camera. Assuming its the d50? And by "exposure blending" do you mean HDR?

 

[sam_justice]

Calm down big guy. No need to get offended so early ha. What were your settings if you dont mind my asking. And what camera. Assuming its the d50? And by "exposure blending" do you mean HDR?

No I mean exposure blending, using a D90. I know where I went wrong now and am going to reattempt. I shot the long exposure at F8 thinking the blending technique would get rid of the blown out highlights. I need to shoot it at f22 whilst the bracketed exposures for the pier need a higher iso to a shorter shutter so I don't get the ghosting.

 

[Derrel]

First one looks pretty good.
And yeah, bumping after 30 minutes when posting in the wee hours of the morning...have a bit of patience...

 

[SrBiscuit]

damn...that was on a tripod?

maybe what makes it look blurry is the ambient glow from all the lights.

curious to see the update.

 

[sam_justice]

damn...that was on a tripod?

maybe what makes it look blurry is the ambient glow from all the lights.

curious to see the update.

I really do think it's the lens and its performance in low light, I don't have this problem with any other lens. I'm going to try with a much sharper prime lens tonite so it'll be interesting to see the outcome. I think I need to do a bit of exposure bracketing to build up the image of the pier as well.

 

[SrBiscuit]

maybe youre right...
ive always had great results from my 18-55kit lens, but ive never really used it in such low light environments.
does low light affect a lens beyond the AF ability? i was always under the impression that low light images suffer more from the sensor than the lens. but again, im not sure.