Glass sculptures at night.. advice needed please

[Richard_Miami]

The setting is Fairchild Tropical Gardens.. in Coral Gables, Florida. It is an exhibition of the huge glass art of Dale Chilhuly. It is open several evenings for people to view the art.. and I went with my 5D and a bunch of lenses. Here are some samples of what I got.

#1
This one came out nice.. but I think its a bit soft. Opinions?

1s f/8.0 at 37.0mm iso1600

http://i5.pbase.com/g6/11/670311/2/74487185.ORrKm5ez.jpg

#2

This one came out just the way I wanted it to:

1/3s f/5.0 at 20.0mm iso1600

http://i5.pbase.com/g6/11/670311/2/74487177.ndJk7QUI.jpg

#3
This one had too much lighting.. the highlights bother me:

0.60s f/5.6 at 26.0mm iso1600
http://i5.pbase.com/g6/11/670311/2/74487179.c0szAoaa.jpg

Obviously a flash is out of the question. That would make highlights worse... and tips or things I should know? I intend on going back for another pass at them.

Thanks in advance.

[CannedHeat]

#1: it appears soft to me also such as in the areas at the under/bottom of the trees that are lighted by the lights and the light tubes themselves. If you shot at 1 sec., I would assume you were tripoded. If tripoded, why not crank the iso down a little from 1600?

#2: is definitely sharper.

#3: highlights don't bother me as much as they apparently bother you, except for that one limb top/center. It's a little distracting but easily PP'ed. If the highlights bothered you, how about suggesting you bracket some exposures and either do some blending or HDRing? /Dan

[Richard_Miami]

#1: it appears soft to me also such as in the areas at the under/bottom of the trees that are lighted by the lights and the light tubes themselves. If you shot at 1 sec., I would assume you were tripoded. If tripoded, why not crank the iso down a little from 1600?

#2: is definitely sharper.

#3: highlights don't bother me as much as they apparently bother you, except for that one limb top/center. It's a little distracting but easily PP'ed. If the highlights bothered you, how about suggesting you bracket some exposures and either do some blending or HDRing? /Dan


Dan -- Thank you for the advice. It is greatly appreciated. (I was beginning to give up hope on my questions..) All shots were tripoded. Many were much better than these three - but these are the ones I wanted help with. As for the iso - I will try to bring it down.

As for #1 and the others - I guess I will take shots are various ISOs and see what happens.

#2 is in my keeper file already - it prints MUCH nicer than the reduced version I posted. The 11x14 is terrific!

#3 I need to learn CS2 better to learn how to correct highlights. I have a book on it, one of these days I am going to read it.

Thanks again. I will be going back at least one more time before the exhibit closes.

[CannedHeat]

Dan -- Thank you for the advice. It is greatly appreciated. (I was beginning to give up hope on my questions..)

No problem. This is the type of stuff I like to shoot, and why your pics attracted me. I looked at Chihuly's exhibition schedule and unfortunately, he doesn't come any where near my location. I found it interesting he has 4 different exhibitions currently running at different locations. He must make multiples of each work. /Dan