Need critque on night shots

[Mrselfdestruct]

Alright, my professor for photography wants me to take a night shot, but overexpose it so it looks like day. Well, I found a good spot and decided to use my car as a subject and have a interesting night background. So, I took some shots and found that this was the one I liked.

After checking through them, all of them had a glare from a street lamp to the left of the frame... It left a glare all over the sky, car, and trees. I sort of took care of the glare on the side of the car; however, the rest of the picture has the glare (in the sky mostly). Anyone know a good way to take that glare out through photoshop.

Besides that, please comment and let me know what you think.

Original Shot:
http://img97.imageshack.us/img97/6797/img3690.jpg

Photoshopped:
http://img14.imageshack.us/img14/412/overexposedvdub3690.jpg

[vpnd]

Start over. These images are over saturated and the white balance is wacked. Start with iso really high and shutter relatively fast. That way you can get an idea for exposure. Try using spot or partial spot on the x. That is just a guess but expose that at -1 and look at your histogram and dial in from there. If you have a shutter release, you can lower iso's and shoot at a higher f/stop.

[windpig]

I'd try and find a shot with little or no bright lights and/or glare, else they'll clip long before you can get the mid tones overexposed.

[joedlh]

And turn off the car lights.

[Mrselfdestruct]

And turn off the car lights.

I want the car lights on, I wanted them to stand out like they are.

I've shot like 10 different scenes (all miles away from each other and completely different lighting and backgrounds). Most of them look like crap because of the 400 ISO, way too much noise. I used 200 ISO for this picture and it looked a lot clearer, 25sec shutter, f/4.5. I'm shooting this scene again tonight because of the lens glare. I have "visor" thing for my lenses that will get rid of that nasty glare from the street lamp. I'll take everyone's suggestions in mind when I shoot. I usually shoot many different exposures and pick the best of the bunch.

I think the biggest problem with this picture is the PP and the lens glare. I sort of rushed the PPing and didn't realize how saturated it was.

[isaax]

In addition to the advice people have given, I would like to see less sky in the frame. The sky is drawing the attention away from the vehicle. Try composing tighter to the vehicle. In addition I would also try composing the shot at more of an angle to the vehicle instead of almost straight on.

[Mrselfdestruct]

In addition to the advice people have given, I would like to see less sky in the frame. The sky is drawing the attention away from the vehicle. Try composing tighter to the vehicle. In addition I would also try composing the shot at more of an angle to the vehicle instead of almost straight on.

No can do =( I tried a different shot with it cropped so the car was more at attention and my professor didn't like it. He's looking for more background. I have no idea why, I think it's because he wants to really tell how overexposed it is. But yeah, I tried a few different angles and when I got home they looked like junk. I wish the LCD screen was bigger so I can see the imperfections easier. When I go back tonight I'm going to shoot a few more angles and hopefully they will come out this time.

[DHMN]

During the August meteor showers... with F2.8 and as dark a spot outside as I could find, a 30 second exposure produced nearly daylight look at ISO 400..when I was bored trying to catch the random meteor I played around with other stuff. Maybe if you had a lot less lights in your background it would turn out better?