Walking on Train Tracks

[cliffhanger407]

At night! I went on a photo walk and played around with some stuff that I haven't done much with lately. I also tried my first off-camera flash lighting, and it turned out OK. C&C on lighting technique on the bottom two and compositional advice on all of them is very appreciated :)

This one didn't work the best because the train vibrated the tripod. Otherwise it would/should have been tack sharp :-/
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3131/3246032873_254f653822_o.jpg

Using ambient lighting (a lighter) to light this one
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3453/3246032119_7a967f7a8f_o.jpg

First time trying to use off camera flash / low-key. Lessons learned: look behind you on train tracks, buy a light stand, take notes to know what lighting settings I need to use in the future, and buy something to control lights off camera. One 430EX to the right of subject set at about 1/8th power, connected with PC chord.
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3081/3246031709_6398214393_o.jpg

[howaboutnow]

Cool. I like the idea you had going here!

Thanks for sharing and keep shooting :)

[cliffhanger407]

Thanks! Anybody got criticism so I can improve? I can take it.

[lonelyjew]

You should have used a much lower ISO on the first shot and third shots instead of going for a tiny aperture. 800 is manageable for XT's but even at these downsized images the noise is clearly visable and takes away from the images as a whole as well as their potential with post processing. Also, by f/16 the lens is probably starting to get some diffraction which will make your images less sharp. Instead of f/16 and ISO 800 you could have went with ISO 100 and f/5.6 which is probably where your lens would have been sharpest.

Other than that I like you pictures :).

[cliffhanger407]

You should have used a much lower ISO on the first shot and third shots instead of going for a tiny aperture. 800 is manageable for XT's but even at these downsized images the noise is clearly visable and takes away from the images as a whole as well as their potential with post processing. Also, by f/16 the lens is probably starting to get some diffraction which will make your images less sharp. Instead of f/16 and ISO 800 you could have went with ISO 100 and f/5.6 which is probably where your lens would have been sharpest.

Other than that I like you pictures :).
Thanks! 800 on the first shot was completely accidental, I saw the train coming, ran to get my gear off the tracks, and then plopped down the tripod and hit the shutter button. Strangely, this was the only pic that worked. I got my settings right for the rest of the photos, but something about them just didn't work at all.

There wasn't substantial noise in the third one, that's actually grain that I intentionally added. I guess that's not everybody's cup of tea. I shot at 800 to try to keep from having the subject be completely still for 20 seconds. f/16 could probably have been fixed with something lower and dropping the shutter speed, but I was thinking about a million things while trying to get my lighting right that I didn't even notice (not even until you mentioned it). Thanks a bundle!