Newbie First time night shooting.

[maxse]

Hello everyone,

So I need some help. I recently got my 400D and Tamron 28-75 lens. I have taken many daytime shots mostly portraits at f/2.8 and I'm pretty happy.

I decided to go to a rooftop deck and take some pictures at night on a tripod. But they did not come out well. I need some help with your C&C on this one and some tips please.

Also I do not understand why a lot of the shots have such redness to them, especially the sky with long exposures. I would really appreciate your help.

Here are some shots. I used ZoomBrowser to save them as JPEGs on highest image quality, then used zenfolio auto-resized (1100X733). Hopefully the EXIF is intact so you guys can give suggestions.

#1
http://www.rsfotos.net/img/v0/p318077841-5.jpg

#2
http://www.rsfotos.net/img/v0/p26008533-5.jpg


#3
http://www.rsfotos.net/img/v0/p144480421-5.jpg


#1 I think that is just dust on the lens which explains those streaks where the sky is right?

#3 I am very concerned why I have such loss of detail on the faces.

*also I am aware that the pictures aren't perfectly horizontal. The rooftop had these rocks instead of concrete and it was hard to position the tripod. I'm assuming this can be easily corrected in CS2?

Thanks for your help in advance.

[Phil Light]

My guess is that your red sky problem is nothing more than a white balance issue. I doubt that the dust you see in the first one is on your lens. it would be WAY out of focus if it was there. The last picture was shot at f/4 which will give you a somewhat shallow depth of field. It appears that your focus is on the buildings on the background which would definitely leave people that close to you out of focus. - (IMO)

[Phil Light]

Correction, on the first one I don't think that's dust at all. Looks like your shutter was open more than 3 seconds which means those are probably aircraft lights moving through your frame.

You should also enable image editing in your profile so people can attempt to "tweak" them. Unless of course you prefer not to allow people to do that.

[maxse]

Great thanks. Keep 'em coming. I am going to enable editing, but please also specify the steps you did to edit them.
Also, I didn't realize that I had to shoot at f/8-f/11. I though ~f/5 would be enough.
So is it a good idea to go to Maximum f/stop like 20 or something and just have the shutter speed be 15-20 secs? Any other comments or suggestions would be appreciated.

[Phil Light]

Great thanks. Keep 'em coming. I am going to enable editing, but please also specify the steps you did to edit them.
Also, I didn't realize that I had to shoot at f/8-f/11. I though ~f/5 would be enough.
So is it a good idea to go to Maximum f/stop like 20 or something and just have the shutter speed be 15-20 secs?...

It's always a judgement call and or personal preference. I don't think I'd ask a group of people though to try to stand still for 15-20 seconds. Even though you are using flash, you are also allowing the ambient light to play a big part it that so they'd have to stand very still to avoid ghosting. I think if I were trying to shoot that third shot I'd probably make my first attempt at f/8.0 and focus on the face of one of the guys. Of course you want to make good use of the ambient light so that as much of the buildings that won't benefit from your flash will show up, therefore your ISO will need to be pretty high.

Anyway here's a quick attempt at color correction using ACR in CS3. After I opened it in Photoshop I used the spot healing brush to remove the streaks from the airplane lights.

http://i177.photobucket.com/albums/w206/jsolenberg/POTN/SkylineII.jpg

Here are the settings I used.
http://i177.photobucket.com/albums/w206/jsolenberg/POTN/CS3Panel.jpg

[Sorarse]

Just for future reference, the redness in the sky is probably due to any sodium lights in the city providing a colour cast. The longer your exposure, the worse the problem will appear.

[elader]

in the first shot,in the light streak in the upper right corner, you can see the blip of the wing light once every ssecond as a brighter blob in the streak.

[maxse]

thanks.
So any tips on how to make these corrections of the redness in the future? What do you guys do to correct for that?

And also, any comments about general composition of the shot? And how can correct the horizon?

[yogestee]

maxse,, the red cast could be due to many factors,, dust in the air, the lights of the city, the time of night etc..

Here is a shot also taken with the Tamron 28-75mm F/2.8.. It was shot just before the sky went totally dark.. There has been heaps of rain here lately (wet season) so the air is totally dust free..

EXIF Data

Make = Canon
Model = Canon EOS 350D DIGITAL
Expand Lens = Tamron AF28-75mm F/2.8 XR Di LD Aspherical (IF)
Focal Length = 28mm
Exposure Time = 13"
F Number = F9
Exposure Program = Manual
ISO Speed Ratings = 200
White Balance = Auto white balance

[Phil Light]

...So is it a good idea to go to Maximum f/stop like 20 or something and just have the shutter speed be 15-20 secs?...

I addressed this question before, but I only mentioned a shot like this with people in it. If you are just shooting a skyline with nothing moving in the picture then by all means experiment with long exposures. Keep a couple of things in mind though, such as long exposures typically lead to additional noise in the dark areas at all ISOs. And, if you stop the aperture way down and use a long exposure, pinpoints of light will result in a star effect. Although sometimes this creates a really cool effect.

Here's an example of what I'm talking about. I shot this during the winter a couple of years ago. The fuzzy looking stuff on the right was from wisps of smoke from a home fireplace. Exposure time 40 seconds at f/22.

http://i177.photobucket.com/albums/w206/jsolenberg/POTN/IndyNight1024.jpg