Above the fair.

[nebular]

I took this shot tonight with my Xti & Tamron 28-75. I'm still learning how to use everything, but I think I got OK results tonight. However, I'm a little frustrated with the food stands that got so blown out on pretty much every one of my images. Is there any way to prevent that from happening?

Thanks!

http://www.gregboyerphotography.com/images/fair1.jpg

[B3SEO]

HEY! The fair comes to Billings Montana. Montana is one of my favorite places. That is actually a pretty cool shot - you can't do much about the blown out food stands, because they make up part of the scene. I like it, nice job!

[milleker]

Greg, how long was your exposure (guessing 1/50)? Did you take any with a slow shutter speed so that the moving lights would blur?

As for the blown out lights, try a tripod and a few bracketed shots and HDR them.

I like the image, perfect colors and really brings the excitement of the fair to the viewer!

[Ojum]

the imperfections in this picture make it perfect if that makes sense. imperfections being blown out lights, it just adds something to the picture. I love it.

[fraggle_rock]

weird! I have that model at home!

http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1240/1218653052_d4db26f815_o.jpg (http://www.flickr.com/photos/aidanspics/1218653052/)

(not sure it worked quite right!)

http://www.recedinghairline.co.uk/tutorials/fakemodel/

[nebular]

Greg, how long was your exposure (guessing 1/50)? Did you take any with a slow shutter speed so that the moving lights would blur?

As for the blown out lights, try a tripod and a few bracketed shots and HDR them.

I like the image, perfect colors and really brings the excitement of the fair to the viewer!

I did a few longer exposures than the one I posted, as well as trying some HDR. The problem I ran into is that if the exposures were much longer than this one, all the lights ended up being completely white, and I lost a lot of the color in the scene. I may try running a few different HDR merges and see what I get, but I actually felt like with the small bit of work I did on this one, that it turned out the best. I'll be sure to post others if I get some good results.

Thanks for the comments!

[Titus213]

I like it the way it is, it looks just like the fair - what more could you want. You got the detail, you got the color - very nice job. Where were you to get this vantage point?

[nebular]

Billings is overlooked by a medium-sized cliff, it provides some pretty good "overhead" shots of different parts of the city.

[chestercopperpot]

i agree. i think its important to remember that there are certain times and situations when its ok and probably correct to have some highlights blown out. this would be one of them, in my opinion, with the food stands. it works in the picture perfectly and does not detract in any way.

[poloman]

I like it. :)

[Dchemist]

You might also try and take the image when its just dusk and the stand lights are first turned on.