New from Nova Scotia and Feedback would be appreciated

[sandraadamson]

Hi there, I am 39 and a photographer in Dartmouth NS, Canada. I have been a member since 2008 but honestly I've never had time to really participate or do much of anything really forum wise-but I just got an iphone and saw that there's an app for this forum how awesome is that. I am a long haul truck driver and part time photographer by professions. Long hauling allows me to travel all over North America, and when I am home I have my own studio and do alot of studio work and weddings but like I said this is very part time and I am still learning. I am currently a student with NYIP as well. At some point I will be leaving the open road and hope to have photography as my full time career or possibly graphic design with photography mixed in. I have been shooting for 5 years now. I don't know that I consider myself a professional trully but I get paid for my work so I guess that makes me a professional. I really consider my photography business a hobby gone crazy-turned into more than I would have dreamed-it still feels strange when I sell images or sell studio time, or get booked for a wedding.

So anyway this time home off the road I decided I wanted to find an image that I could blow up for my dining room wall-I thought sunflowers, scenery, landscapes and nothing that came to mind was really what I wanted. Then while out and about shooting the town clock in Halifax for my NYIP assignment, it hit me what about an image of the old bridge at night in black and white with just the lights lighting up the towers in green. The more I thought about it the more I knew that was the image I wanted. I have a tendancy to shoot that way-think it through-what I want and then go get it. So I sat and waited for two hours for the sun to go down and imagine my dismay when one portion of the one of the two towers light was out! I was so ticked-cause this meant photoshop work. So I took my shot anyway missing the light then went home and worked some photoshop magic. The image below is what I have come up with for my dining room wall. All of my images in my house are black and white and I felt that leaving the towers in color would really make the bridge pop on the wall. I have plans to put black and white smaller images to the right and left. So now that my story is done I would like to know if anyone sees anything I could improve on it at all? I shot this in raw so I can do anything to it. Any constructive critisism would be greatly appreciated as I do really want this image to be perfect for my wall-if need be I would reshoot. I really do love it but if there something I could do better that I am not aware of I'd like to know. I also shoot manual mode.

Some info on the image:
Nikon D300, 50mm 1.8 lens, ISO 400, shutterspeed 1/5 sec, f2.8 on tripod.
I wanted to stay below 400 iso as I find the noise really bad on the D300 when I go over 500 which pretty much leaves me stuck at the f2.8 aperature I would have liked to have a smaller aperature like f11.

 

[889Media]

You should be able to shoot an image like that using longer exposure time. I think the end result would be just as good - if not even better if you used longer exposure and smaller aperture. As the image is right now, nothing appears to be in focus, so if longer exposure would result in more motion blur in the water - I still think this would be better. And, as you should from a tripod - longer exposure should not be a problem. That could even let you go further down on your ISO. (as far as I know)

 

[sandraadamson]

You should be able to shoot an image like that using longer exposure time. I think the end result would be just as good - if not even better if you used longer exposure and smaller aperture. As the image is right now, nothing appears to be in focus, so if longer exposure would result in more motion blur in the water - I still think this would be better. And, as you should from a tripod - longer exposure should not be a problem. That could even let you go further down on your ISO. (as far as I know)

I think I will give it another go, it was very very windy the day I took the picture and the shutterspeed was already really low, maybe I'll wait for a calmer day with no wind. I had to hang on to my tripod and its a heavy duty one too. Thanks!