sydney - broadway

[synthz]

Hello... I took this pic from inside the car. It was near sydney CBD. I love the vibrant lights and the building's lighting in this pic. Taken with Canon PSA200

http://www.gravy.friction.com.au/forums/attachment.php?s=&postid=1017

[eland]

Hi

An interesting shot and quite a lot that can be learnt from it concerning technique.
Neither film nor digital can handle such a wide exposure range. The top part of the building is fine and attractive
but the overexposed shops rather spoil the effect.

Also the Nori MP sign is a distraction.

To get the top part of the building and the shops both looking good, the best way is to take the shot twice.
That's hard if you are not using a tripod.

Exposure 1 is for the top as you have done.
Exp. 2 is for the shops........ about 2 stops less.

To get this right, take a reading off the lighted shops and set shutter and F stop manually.

For the top, again take a reading and set the camera manually.

Then as you have Adobe PS use layers and layer mask to join the best of each image.

As a further exercise you could correct the converging verticals. ............... and use a tripod for long exposures.

Kind regards
eland
kiama

[synthz]

Thanks very much for the advice eland! Yeah looks like the exposure level isn't the same with the top part & bottom part. Unfortunately i don't have a tripod, but your suggestion is very nice tip for me the next time i wanna make a complicated lighting night scene photo.

BTW, if we combine 2 pics together...that's not called 'cheating' by others?

[eland]

Hi

Thank you for your message.
Hope my comments help you.

In answer to your question Is it Cheating ? Manipulating images is standard practice these days.

In fact it has ALWAYS been standard practice even in wet darkrooms.

Burning in, dodging, solarizing, bas relief, texture screens, posterization, tone drop outs, adding clouds to bare skies, double exposures, high contrast etc are all conventional basic darkroom techniques.

I've been looking at the 1992 NZ Yearbook of photography. Nothing digital in the whole book but more than 40% of the images are obviously and creatively manipulated in conventional darkrooms.

So don't feel guilty about doing what has for been done for more than a century.
Look at the composite photographs of Rejlander
done in the 1850's and the work of H P Robinson in 1861.

Here is a quote describing how Robinson created his photographs around 1860....
.......Henry Peach Robinson devised a photographic technique that allowed him to produce imaginary scenes.

To illustrate Tennyson's poem "The Lady of Shalot" Robinson pasted a posed print of a lady lying in a grounded boat, onto a background of water and trees.
After retouching the overlapped outlines, he then rephotographed the composite picture, and made prints for sale from the new negative.

(he needed to ground the boat as with the very slow emulsions of the day, the lady would have been blurred had he taken the photograph with the boat afloat. )
That was in 1861.
In another example he shows a half finished composite. A photograph of a reclining woman is pasted onto a pencil sketch.

So don't feel guilty about working on your images.
There will always be Simon Pure's who will cluck like a lot old hens. Forget about them. Let them cluck and shake their silly heads.

You enjoy your hobby to the full.

Digital manipulation is most creative and fascinating and will not only improve your photography out of sight, but it will give you a huge amount of satisfaction and enjoyment all on its own.

You will find it to be a brand new hobby in its own right.

Go for it and have lots of fun.

eland

[synthz]

Thank you Eland! And i really appreciate your advice for me.