Toning down bright lights, what should I do?

[Sikario]

The picture below was taken with my A80, however I think the street lamp and one of the headlights are slightly too bright. Apart from changing the shutter speed (I used 15 seconds to get the streaks of light from passing vehicles) what else could I do to stop the lights being such a distraction? Are there any filters that could either tone down bright light, or create a good effect that would look better?

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/n.e.bullock/Tower%20BMW%201.jpg

Thanks.

[PhotosGuy]

If it's a set shot with a parked car like this, you could have someone turn the lights off partway thru the exposure, & put a piece of ND gell over the street light on a piece of optically flat glass attached to a sunshade.
Or, you could try this:
http://photography-on-the.net/forum/posting.php?mode=reply&t=46730

[lucasdigital]

I'm also interested in an answer to this, I spent a couple of hours last night taking my first proper nightshots, also using the 15 second exposure time (very useful).

I was disappointed with the results in general, blooming and spectrals really diminish most of the photos I took.

One of the few shots that didn't bomb -

http://www.lucas-digital.com/bloghouse/sheffield_by_night2.jpg

I'll have to look into using filters, I've never used them before so I better do some reading up.

[chris.bailey]

You did well to be parked there for 15 seconds at all, must have been pretty late for there to be so few cars around.

Personally I think it works ok as it is, maybe a colour balance tweak.

[stopbath]

Due to the wide variance in brilliance between subject and light source, you can not take one image containing both and have them both properly exposed. You could try to limit the exposure time and then with curves bring up the subject matter in tone, but that likely won't work as well as the more complex method of combining too images of the same shot. Take one image exposing for the light source (so it does not bloom, or has little blooming) then expose for the subject matter. Later combine the two images, so that the lights and the subject both look natural.

You could try shooting the night scenes with more light in the sky. This can easily move the subject matter up a few levels of light, allowing a closer contrast range. (Full moon instead of no moon, dusk or dawn instead of midnight...)