Night Shot Critique(s)

[Travis]

I get a little teary when I see my local Pub in night time exposure. Tell me how to improve these shots.

[tegan]

The trick to night shots is not to shoot at night. The best time to shoot night shots is after the lights come on, but when there is still sufficient ambient light from the sky to give shape and minimal detail to buildings and even poorly lit areas. The best night shots are taken at or a little after sundown.

Tegan

[Travis]

well damn.... all that time i wasted taking 10 seconds exposures when I could have been knocking back a few at the pub....

now I'm wondering the distance capability of my shutter remote.... next time I go to reshoot maybe i can set up my camera in the same spot and shoot myself having a cold one..

[Marko]

Although I see tegan's point of view, I disagree with the sweeping generalization. :) There is something quite powerful about night and shots taken at night. Often ambient light is nice to have(and I agree about its use in these shots)...but definitely not always.

For me shot 2 is much stronger than shot 1. Why? Because there is no real focal point point in shot 1. What is the shot about? the pub? the vista? ...and there is way too much sky.

Shot 2 is much tighter and the focal point is more defined. The light on the right is a bit distracting to me and if this were my shot I'd clone it out. I might try to bring out more detail by using levels or curves and dodging all around the perimeter of the shot. I might try to get detail in the dock (if there's enough) since it's the on the dock pub. It's too bad that the second shot wasn't shot in the same light as the first shot.

Hope that helps,

Marko

[tegan]

Although I see tegan's point of view, I disagree with the sweeping generalization. :) There is something quite powerful about night and shots taken at night. Often ambient light is nice to have(and I agree about its use in these shots)...but definitely not always.

For me shot 2 is much stronger than shot 1. Why? Because there is no real focal point point in shot 1. What is the shot about? the pub? the vista? ...and there is way too much sky.

Shot 2 is much tighter and the focal point is more defined. The light on the right is a bit distracting to me and if this were my shot I'd clone it out. I might try to bring out more detail by using levels or curves and dodging all around the perimeter of the shot. I might try to get detail in the dock (if there's enough) since it's the on the dock pub. It's too bad that the second shot wasn't shot in the same light as the first shot.

Hope that helps,

Marko

The only exception, Marko, to not shooting within a short period after sundown in order to get ambient light is a night shot that avoids large dark areas with lack of detail, and that is not always possible, as you see here in the first shot. From the same location, if possible, I would have zoomed in closer and used a 16 by 9 format to reduce the sky.

The second shot is a no win situation from the point of view of composition. As it stands, it is slightly tilted and there is a lack of symetry between the pub buildings and the reflection at a bit of an angle which is visually distracting. On the other hand if were perfectly symetrically balanced, there would be no visual tension and no particular part of the image for the eye to centre on.

Tegan

[Travis]

Thank you for the critiques...

A big part of these photo's for me was capturing the reflection.... and the aura of the ambient lighting under long exposure..

I don't know much about composing night shots with water reflections... I like these shots but this is most likely because it's the first time I've tried it.....

I'll try again and post the work.. :)