Night Photography Experiements

[jetman]

I got my first DSLR a few months ago, and I feel like I've learned quite a bit. Digital photography is like this beautiful medley of technology and art so I'm really enjoying it. I was hoping for some feedback on these pictures taken at the US Space and Rocket Center in Huntsville, AL.

These were taken with:

Nikon D90
Nikon AF-S Nikkor 18-105mm 1:3.5-5.6G ED
Sunpak PlatinumPlus Ultra7500 TM Tripod/Monopod

f/11, 30 sec shutter speed, ISO 200, 45mm focal length

f/11, 30 sec shutter speed, ISO 200, 18mm focal length

Any advice or critiques would be greatly appreciated!

 

[rdking647]

i would try a more wide open lens for a shorter time to try and keep the sky black instead of brown. or try a bracketing of exposures

 

[480sparky]

Using the proper setting for White Balance will help... they look a sickly yellow/orange.

 

[jetman]

Thanks for the feedback; I really appreciate it!

i would try a more wide open lens for a shorter time to try and keep the sky black instead of brown. or try a bracketing of exposures​

My rationale for shooting the way I did was that I read the lens I used for this shot ( Nikon AF-S Nikkor 18-105mm 1:3.5-5.6G ED VR) was "most crisp" at an aperture of f/8 to f/11. So I based the shutter speed off of that. I also wanted as little noise as possible so I kept it at ISO200 and based on that needed the long exposure. Since I'm very new (under 2.5k shots under my belt) I base everything initially off this kind of algorithm:

1. Keep ISO as low as possible almost always unless absolutely necessary (action shots in low light would be an example of when I would increase it). I do this to keep as little noise as possible.
2. The faster the object moves, the more I increase shutter speed and compensate with a more open aperture.
3. Finally I adjust the fstop, if I can, to adjust for my FOD based upon where my subject resides.

Perhaps this is too robotic and maybe even an incorrect algorithm, but even though I shoot in manual mode, I guess mentally primarily shoot in shutter priority mode. I don't quite have the intuitive feel yet for how to adjust things...and unfortunately by the time I figure out what it should be my shot is gone That's why I'm really digging the longer exposure, tripod, night shots.

Using the proper setting for White Balance will help... they look a sickly yellow/orange.​

Thanks for the advice! Not being sarcastic, but any advice for the "proper" white balance? The ones these were shot in were the "cloudy" and "shade" auto white balance settings on my D90. I played around a little with this out there by trying Incandescent (turned it blue). But I didn't really know how to adjust this very well. I'll do some searching and read up on it.

Thanks again for the comments!

 

[rdking647]

depending on the camera i found noisei isnt an issue at even higher iso's
i would definetly try bracketing the exposures you never know what will work best at night and digital photos are cheap
for setting the white balance if you shoot in raw mode you can adjust the white balance in post processing. I tend to shoot everything i can in raw vs JPG

 

[480sparky]

Thanks for the advice! Not being sarcastic, but any advice for the "proper" white balance? The ones these were shot in were the "cloudy" and "shade" auto white balance settings on my D90. I played around a little with this out there by trying Incandescent (turned it blue). But I didn't really know how to adjust this very well. I'll do some searching and read up on it.

Thanks again for the comments!

I can tell you just by looking at the images the lighting is high-pressure sodium. Color temp is typically 1900-2800 K.

 

[jetman]

depending on the camera i found noisei isnt an issue at even higher iso's
i would definetly try bracketing the exposures you never know what will work best at night and digital photos are cheap
for setting the white balance if you shoot in raw mode you can adjust the white balance in post processing. I tend to shoot everything i can in raw vs JPG

Thanks for the advice! Not being sarcastic, but any advice for the "proper" white balance? The ones these were shot in were the "cloudy" and "shade" auto white balance settings on my D90. I played around a little with this out there by trying Incandescent (turned it blue). But I didn't really know how to adjust this very well. I'll do some searching and read up on it.

Thanks again for the comments!

I can tell you just by looking at the images the lighting is high-pressure sodium. Color temp is typically 1900-2800 K.

Thanks to each of you! I searched for several hours yesterday to learn about white balance, and it was quite eye opening. It explains why many of my pictures looked so dull even when properly exposed. To learn, often times I will take a picture in manual mode with what I think it should be and then let the camera decide on auto and compare the settings. Then I would realize the auto looked so much better so I would duplicate settings exactly, and it wouldn't look right even though the exposures were identical otherwise.

Learning all this was quite informative. It's just another variable to think about when taking pictures - as if I didn't have enough But I'm learning and getting better all the time.

I did read up on bracketing and HDR, etc yesterday as well and that could potentially be another tool I could use to get the right exposures so thanks for mentioning that.

May I also ask how you knew it was "high-pressure sodium?" I've obviously only been playing with these settings for all of a day now, but I find I have a little more success manually adjusting the color temperature after taking a test shot to see if it should be warmer or cooler rather than being indoors and setting it to "Incandescent" or outdoors and setting to sunny.

Thanks so much for all the help!

 

[480sparky]

May I also ask how you knew it was "high-pressure sodium?"!

I'm an electrician.

 

[Frequency]

Actually i really liked the sky tone, even though it is not real; sparky must be right, it is an outcome of yellow of sodium vapor lamp mixing with twilight red......

...and you are enjoying your honeymoon with your DSLR... i tell a secret... this honeymoon will never end

Happy times

 

[jetman]

May I also ask how you knew it was "high-pressure sodium?"!

I'm an electrician.

haha That would explain it.

Actually i really liked the sky tone, even though it is not real; sparky must be right, it is an outcome of yellow of sodium vapor lamp mixing with twilight red......

...and you are enjoying your honeymoon with your DSLR... i tell a secret... this honeymoon will never end

Happy times

Thanks! I certainly hope it doesn't end. I'm having a great time. This is kind of surprising because we only got this camera because I'm a soon to-be first time father and we wanted to be able to have plenty of good pictures to capture memories and vacations. I'm having tons of fun learning while we wait for him to get here.

 

[Robin Usagani]

On 2nd shot I personally would shoot it with wide zoom flash.