My first night shots attempt

[passerby]

I am not keen night shooter at all but I wanted to try. Saturday
morning about 70 minutes before the sun's up I went shooting in
the city hand held!!. Many blurry pictures which were look so good on
the lcd screen. So I went back the next morning with tripod (I hate
that thing). So here are the samples.

1. The Shangri-la taken hanheld with the support of the stair hand
rail. The distortion is visible by looking at the first light pole.
2. The Opera house at dawn using tripod.
3. The Albatros Using tripod. I love the way this boat photo came out.
It was a struggle to balance the bright lights and the dim lights. But it
was worth a try. Thanks for looking C&C always welcome for me
to improve.

ISO 400 1/6 of a second

ISO 400 f5.6 1/4 of a second

ISO 200 f8.0 1 second.

 

[Warhawk]

I love night photos!

If you ask me, you will have to keep the shutter open for a bit longer on all the photos, not so much longer on image 1, because of the light that is close to you (otherwise it will come out weird), but on the rest i would deffinately try with longer shutter times

 

[sultan]

Fairly nice pics. I see that you need more dynamic range.

Method 1:
Do you have photoshop? Try shooting the same shot with with -1 EV, 0 EV and +2 EV than put them into the HDR tool in photoshop and experiment.

Method 2:
Use the Highlights and Shadows tool (I know this is in apple software but I don't know what else has it). It helps a lot and is easy (no bracketing required). Just turn up the shadows slider and voila! Just a warning though - if you turn it up too much, you will degrade your image quality and it will start looking like a day scene.

 

[Early]

I really like that first one even if you didn't use the tripod. The only thing I'd try is going back and getting it with just a hint of daylight on the horizon.

 

[Warhawk]

Here are some of my night shots:



They all were taken between 15 to 30 sec shutter times.

If anyone knows if it is possible to let the lights look less overexposed, please do share! (while keeping the shutter speed the same)

 

[pm63]

Nice night shots, but they are all too dark!

1. For the non-tripod ones, you need a MUCH higher ISO, I would say ISO 800 to be the minimum for hand-shooting at night, possibly 1600. I know you lose quality, but it would be better to have a brighter photo with a bit of noise than a really dark one which doesn't look that good.

2. For the tripod shots, keep the ISO as low as it can go, but shoot with MUCH longer shutter speeds (there shouldn't be an issue as your camera is being held still), like 10sec+.

The photos are okay, just too dark.

 

[passerby]

Thank guys for your input. Yes they are dark of course, as it was
dark . I know I know I know what you mean, but I merely
produced what I saw there into the camera as close as possible. It
is known as WYSIWYG: What You See Is What You Get. Alright next
time when I have another chance I will give it another go - brighter.

Btw I have one here which is the most over exposed photo taken, it
is blury too because the vibration from road trafic and the train
passing. But also I want to test this Irfan program if it can shrink
the picture to fit in the browser. I think it is fit now, hooray.

 

[Warhawk]

That photo looks better than the rest

I have seen a photo someone took of Sydney Harbor at night once, it was a amazing photo!

 

[TamiyaGuy]

I think the last photo look much better. It still gets the perfect "night" effect, but without losing any details at all. The others are generally a bit dark.

Nice work!

 

[GeorgeUK]

I think the last photo posted is the best.

As mentioned, the others are a tad on the dark side. I understand the WYSIWYG concept, but I think you need to use the light to your advantage. Longer shutter speeds required imo.

 

[Early]

Excellent, but I still like the first one the best the way the sidewalk and fence lead the viewer into the photo. If you can steal the skyline from this last one and put it in the first, that would be awesome.

 

[EOS_JD]

Thank guys for your input. Yes they are dark of course, as it was
dark . I know I know I know what you mean, but I merely
produced what I saw there into the camera as close as possible. It
is known as WYSIWYG: What You See Is What You Get. Alright next
time when I have another chance I will give it another go - brighter.

Btw I have one here which is the most over exposed photo taken, it
is blury too because the vibration from road trafic and the train
passing. But also I want to test this Irfan program if it can shrink
the picture to fit in the browser. I think it is fit now, hooray.

This is certainly not over exposed. In fact it looks pretty reasonable to me. The others are however way under exposed. Your eyes can capture a lot more dynamic range than a camera lens and therefore in your first few images I cannot believe that is the way your eyes saw that. WYSIWYG is almost impossible in night photography because your eyes have so much more dynamic range.

I have been there too

 

[frXnz kafka]

I agree this is the best of the bunch. The only thing is you might want to crop a bit off the left. That bright white light halfway down is very distracting.