Surfers Paradise skyline at night.

[andrew_j]

Hi All,

This is my first post and I welcome some constructive criticism (but please be gentle ha ha).

I have uploaded two photos I took recently of the Surfers Paradise skyline.

The first of these photos is a 50 sec exposure, shot at f8, ISO 400.

The second photo is a longer exposure at 75 seconds, shot at f8 again but ISO 100. The longer exposure meant that the stars started to streak and as such are not very sharp. But the lights from a commercial plane turning towards the buildings and then heading south (towards the right) to the airport to land does add a point of interest in the sky. You can also see the lights from the plane in the reflection of the water which I quite like.

Andrew

 

[sscarmack]

Not what I was expecting by the term "Surfer", I was expecting like a ocean sunset with a surfer sitting on his board watching the sun go down.


But this is nice also! I enjoy doing long exposures like this also.

 

[TCampbell]

You're getting star trails in both. If you want to avoid that, there's a guideline as follows:

For a full-frame camera, you can use the "Rule of 600" which says you divide 600 by the focal length of the lens. That's the number of seconds you can expose without the stars becoming elongated and forming trails.

If you've got a crop-frame camera (your profile says you have a Canon 7D) then you need to tweak the formula by dividing that by the crop factor of the camera (in your case 1.6) but you could just remember to use "400" as your starting value. E.g. Suppose you use a 20mm focal length... you'd do 400 / 20(mm) = 20 (seconds) and that's how long you can expose without worrying that the stars will elongate.

I do prefer the warmer lighting in #1.

 

[ronlane]

Good information Tim, thanks for sharing.

 

[andrew_j]

Thanks Tim.

 

[Skor35]

Awesome to about the star trail thing, will have to hold onto that one.
Very nice cityscapes here. I think the plane coming in is unique, I like how it just curved around the top of the building as well and didn't cut through. Quick question though, were two different white balances used, our did the lights on the building change from pic to pic?
Good job!