First crack at long exposure...C and C please!

[smackitsakic]

Can you help me improve these shots for next time? This is really my first crack at night time photography and I found a relatively interesting subject to shoot at the farm this weekend.
What can I do better next time?

1:
shutter speed - 232 seconds
f22
ISO 400

2:
shutter speed - 119 seconds
f22
ISO 200

 

[kundalini]

One tip is to shoot before all light and color has left the sky, yet dark enough for the artificial lights to illuminate. This will help give depth to the shots. The pitch black sky is kinda boring.

 

[RobNZ]

Why did you shoot at the settings you used?

By closing your aperture you increase the duration of the exposure time, you will also usually reduce sharpness, and you will increase any noise due to the longer exposure time and the first one was shot at iso400 which will increase noise even further, its a no win situation.

The same scene could have been shot at f/7-11 and at iso100. Try it out.

As Kundalini said, a black sky is boring, but if all light is gone, shoot the farm scene with no lights in frame on a clear night and catch some star trails to add something to the sky if it is pitch black, at larger apertures you will be amazed how much light your sensor can pick up, including stars you cant even see.

 

[Tbini87]

i would crop out the handrail in the first shot. also shoot a little earlier in the evening as noted before. if you could get some dark blue in the sky WITH the light in the pic those shots would really stand out!

 

[Sw1tchFX]

why f/22? You're shooting at night, you don't have to make it any darker, and it's not like you're trying to blur any motion, not to mention diffraction..

Shoot more around f/5.6, ISO 100, and like what kundalini said, get there when the sun is setting and catch it when the sky is a deep blue but the lights illuminate.

 

[kundalini]

In the OPs defense, not that he/she needs it, but by opening up the aperture, you lessen the star-effect than you get at f/22. That might've what the attempt was for.

 

[smackitsakic]

Thanks for the tips. I shot at the settings I did to capture the starburst on the grain bin light. Would this be possible at the apertures you folks are suggesting (f5.6, f7, f11)? I didn't want the grain bin light, which was very bright by comparison to the surrounding scene, to be a white blog of overexposure. I had a tripod and a remote release anyway so figured I could afford the time to use a long exposure, though if it's hindering my photo clarity, then i guess I should have tried anything but f22 which was the only constant variable for me as I adjusted shutter speed/iso but locked my aperture because of that starburst goal.

Anything else? Any post-processing techniques that could improve this?

 

[Sw1tchFX]

In the OPs defense, not that he/she needs it, but by opening up the aperture, you lessen the star-effect than you get at f/22. That might've what the attempt was for.

good call, i'm used to shooting with mega-aperture primes like the 24 and 50 1.4's where star bursts like that can be had at f/5.6, where i'm stopping down 4 times. The OP would be shooting wide open, and stopped down 4 times would be f/22.