pls help me on this photo, how can i improve this shot?

[john0213]

Hiiiii guys~!!!

I've recently started photography and have been enjoying this hobby sooo much! I'm so happy to be one of the members in here as this forum is flooded with talented photographers ranging all the way from amateur to professional level.

I recently purchased a used 40d body; as the theory goes, one should always invest more money into lens than body, hence I went all out to pair the 40d body with the 17-55 f2.8. it was a pretty brave decision considering i have zero knowledge and am just starting to learn photography from the very basic. After all the research and suggestions from our fellow members, I also purchased the book "Understanding Exposure" and have been learning a lot from the book + all the online resources.

As i have stated, having zero knowledge on photography, I'm trying my best to catch up and improve my skill. so far, I've encountered quite a few obstacles. The very one that bothers me the most is the saturated light from night landscape shot. I just can't seem to get them sharp and right.

I will give you guys a finished product first:

http://i83.photobucket.com/albums/j318/john0213/Photography/Landscape/IMG_5524_0_1_2_3.jpg
This is a HDR consist of three exposure. I've tried my very best to fix the photo and did a lot of post processing to it.

Below is the original. As you can see, i probably should have used a longer shutter speed and lower the ISO because there are noise everywhere. apparently, i didn't know what i was doing at that time.... LOL

http://i83.photobucket.com/albums/j318/john0213/Photography/Landscape/IMG_5523.jpg

With the below pic, as you can see, i personally am not too satisfied with the image as i can't get that tack sharp focus that i want. the saturated light seems to be the main problem.

http://i83.photobucket.com/albums/j318/john0213/Photography/Landscape/IMG_5528.jpg

As I have said, I am still very inexperience and green on photography. Any help or suggestion will be greatly appreciated. i hope that through having you guys commenting on my photo, I can at one point achieve some stunning image. (and I know that's gonna take long)

Anyways, please drop by some comment, let me know what you think and what i can do next time to better this kind of image.

Thanks a bunch guys!!

[Scottes]

For the first photo, I would simply crop a lot of the sky out since it's not interesting. Once that's done I like it quite a bit.

For night shots in general, and especially night HDR, you're better off going with ISO 100. Sometimes the HDR process will add noise, particularly with Photomatix, so higher ISO makes it even worse. Try running noise-reduction before running the exposures through the HDR process.

For night HDR, I've found that you need to spread out the exposures and take a lot of them. The lights are brighter than you think! I tend to do 7 or 9 exposures, and 2/3 to 1 stop apart. The darkest 3-5 exposures are only to expose the lights "correctly" so the halos don't blow out too much of the rest of the photo. (The "saturated light" as you call it.)

That last exposure might benefit from a lower exposure, and making it a bit darker. Just a guess though.

[vtphotography]

You can try doing these as an HDR as suggested. But, i would recommend the following...most night shots you see really aren't taken at night, they're taken just after the sun goes down when there is still a little light in the sky (known as the 'blue time' either in am or pm). This will allow you to balance your exposure more evenly. It will also require a shorter shutter time, which will probably lead to sharper photos.
When i see these shots, it looks as if the lights are just floating in the frame...it needs definition. This is an example of the blue time...hope that helps.

http://vtphotography.zenfolio.com/img/v6/p822189845-2.jpg