Oh man I had to lol!

RobNZ · Jul 10, 2010

Ok so I have had this idea for a shot brewing for a few months now, thinking about it technically, IE; how to pull it off, best time of day/night, location, how to predict my subject, exposure, f-stop, lens, height, foreground you name it I had thought of it, and from what I achieved technically, I pulled it off. Excellent!!!!!

However......
what I hadnt anticipated so much was that the subject is not in anyway recogniseable for what it is. Although in hindsight I do now know how to get what I am after.

So what was my subject, this is the question?

Even though I completely failed in showing the viewer the subject there is still something about this shot that I quite like, I think its just the overall general colour tone, smooth lines and the sheer fact that I had to laugh at myself for cocking it up, haha.

fokker · Jul 10, 2010

I'm guessing it's some sort of boat

Ron Evers · Jul 10, 2010

fokker said:
I'm guessing it's some sort of boat

x2

dak1b · Jul 10, 2010

looks good.
is this horizon a tab off or is it just me?

LaFoto · Jul 10, 2010

Yes, colours and tones are really nice, and I, too, guess, that it is a boat going past, but what kind of boat??? Hmmm :scratch: !?
To me, your horizon looks ok.

Morpheuss · Jul 10, 2010

it would be an amazing photo if you slowed the boat going by enough so we can tell its a boat and what kind of boat such as barge or what not

OrionsByte · Jul 10, 2010

If it's a shot you've been planning for months, the subject must be something that's there quite regularly; if it's a boat, my guess would be a ferry of some sort or another.

peanut170 · Jul 10, 2010

Morpheuss said:
it would be an amazing photo if you slowed the boat going by enough so we can tell its a boat and what kind of boat such as barge or what not

Just curious how you would do this, a shorter shutter speed or something else?

pbelarge · Jul 10, 2010

All those lights makes me think of a tug boat. Small wake (maybe) also makes me think of a tug boat.

lunaaa · Jul 10, 2010

A ferry?

benlonghair · Jul 10, 2010

Cruise ship?

RobNZ · Jul 10, 2010

peanut170 said:
Morpheuss said:

it would be an amazing photo if you slowed the boat going by enough so we can tell its a boat and what kind of boat such as barge or what not

Click to expand...

Just curious how you would do this, a shorter shutter speed or something else?

A massive flash at some point could do it, but it would have to be freaking huge to light up a 300 foot ship to reveal the ship with a large enough source of light to illuminate the entire thing and intense enough, fired right before the shutter closes on a 3 minute exposure.

Or.....shoot it in reverse, so expose it while ship is still at its berth and without the camera moving at all make another exposure as the ship leaves the port which would show its light path heading off into the distance. Then combine the 2 images and remove the stationary lights (port lights) that would be blown out. Would need some serious thought on composition.

Could also be done in reverse if you knew exactly where the berth was going to be.

Any other ideas?

Most of you nailed it with a boat of some kind, it was about a 300 foot general cargo ship, 171 second exposure about an hour after sunset mid winter.

While waiting for another ship to depart (which it did not do) and had time to kill, I shot this from the same location to get an idea of where our centre of axis is, 10 minute exposure which when I saw the results of the first one I took another 10 minute exposure but when checking the first shot I moved the camera ever so slightly and now cant get the shots to overlay without alot of mucking around.

This has been PP for levels, curves, gradient filter, whitebalanced to be much much cooler and sharpened, pitch black at the time.

I will go out tonight and shoot some better star trails with a more intersting foreground provided the skies stay clear.

So another interesting shot but not a keeper, good for reference though.