Night shots out of focus

[Nam Le]

Lowering the red saturation and the exposure overall plus some noise removal, makes at least this one look better.

Thanks The_Traveler. The original is that red actually. Do you mean to make to tone like this?

 

[Nam Le]

Hi guys, thanks for the helpful tips. So last night I went out to retry the same scene. What I did was: using f/11, secure the tripod (lower it down, put it on a very concrete ground), using 2s delay, long exposure noise reduction.

Because the f is lower, I need to set shutter speed to be ~30s only, the the noise and blur are still there no matter how much I try to denoise in Litght Room, I still can't get it righ.

I set manual focus on this building. As you can see the windows are still dark and noisy.

I also tried to use multiple exposure and stack them up but the scene is not yet HDR.

Is there are a way I can achieve this: https://cdn.burst.zone/wp-content/u...opolis-Hong-Kong-What-Happens-Around-Dusk.jpg

This is very well and even lit. Whilst mine are low contrast and lots of flares as I tried to get the building brighter.

Thanks for reading my very long post, have a nice Sunday

 

[Designer]

Using a very tiny aperture can introduce diffraction effects in your shots. The aperture in the first shot of f/21 was too small, which brought you to expose for a very long time.

The subsequent shots at f/11 should have been better, but there may be something else affecting the sharpness. Is there anything in front of the lens, such as a UV filter, by any chance? If so, remove it.

If you can get a shot like the second one in 30 seconds, open the aperture a bit more and decrease your shutter speed correspondingly.

The last shot that you attached is HDR, which is mostly an editing effect. Also, since you probably do not own that photograph, please take it down and post a link only to the image.

 

[Nam Le]

Hi Designer, yes there was an UV filter. Did you mean reducing the shutter speed will limit vibration so the photo will sharper? Thanks.

 

[astroNikon]

Most UV filters are a big negative in clarity. All your photos should be sharper now.
Most ppl recommend using the UV filter as a soda pop can coaster.

as you increase the aperture, you are able to take a faster shutter speed, which will further minimize vibration problems.

 

[Designer]

Hi Designer, yes there was an UV filter. Did you mean reducing the shutter speed will limit vibration so the photo will sharper? Thanks.

Take off the filter. It is not doing you any favors at the moment.

No, I wrote about diffraction. It is a function of light being transmitted by glass. Air and water will do that also, but in some lenses the diffraction is exacerbated when using small apertures. Your shot was taken at f/21, which is very small. Read this short tutorial: Diffraction Limited Photography: Pixel Size, Aperture and Airy Disks

My comment about reducing the shutter speed (time it is open) will help with sharpness if there is any vibration in the tripod, but the two things I mentioned are things that I am quite confident will aid in producing sharper photos.

 

[Nam Le]

Thanks Designer, I will try without UV filter and short exposure time.

 

[Designer]

.. and short exposure time.

Once again; the point is not for the short shutter time, but rather a more reasonable aperture setting.

Try f/5.6 or f/8. If you get better results but are not completely happy with that, go back to f/11 or f/16 to see if there is any improvement.

Your shutter speed might have to be adjusted accordingly.

And have we discussed increasing the ISO? I don't believe that has entered the conversation, so do that as well.

 

[wfooshee]

Night-time cityscapes have a very wide dynamic range. Bright things are VERY bright and end up being pure white, and dark things are VERY dark and end up being pure black. Those extremes are simply too far apart for the camera to be able to see them at the same time; the camera simply can't record information at the extremes.

The Hong Kong shot you posted as something to emulate is done with HDR, which stands for High Dynamic Range. It may even be composited from shots at different times of the day. You take several identical shots, each exposed differently. By themselves. none will be "correct." Some will be extremely dark (underexposed,) some with be extremely light (overexposed.) The dark pictures will have detail in the bright areas, though, that gets lost as pure white in a "correctly" exposed image, and the light pictures will have detail in the dark areas that would be lost as pure black in a "correct" image. A computer program is then used which can combine those images into a single composite, compressing the difference between very bright and very dark so that both extremes retain detail in the image.

Making a good HDR image requires a hefty amount of judgment, and the adjustment used and their effects will be a matter of taste and experience.

 

[amitbhatt]

it really depends on what your subject is...ie how far away it is. Are you shooting a night panoramic? Are you shooting a night portrait? both require very different techniques.

if you are shooting a night pano with out much light then manual focus is your friend. set the focus point at infinity and shoot way.

if you are shooting a night portrait then your on camera focus assist or focus assist beams on your hot shoe flash should do the trick.

Hi Amitbhatt, thanks for the tips, I am trying to capture night panorama. I used manual focus too, the objects (building) are very far away, I think around 1-3km.