First attempt at city skyline photography

Hi Guys ,

Heres my first shot at city night time pictures.

Settings :

5 shots.
Shot in Raw
F10
Iso 100
20 Seconds exposure on tripod.

18-55MM lens IS off.

Focused on street lights at the bottom (1/3rd in)

Converted to B&W with photoshop

Is anything wrong with it? I think it came out pretty well


Go easy on me plz!

It may look like the top of the tower is chopped off , but it is NOT , I have a bit of space between is and the end of the frame.

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This photo is very hard to make out. There is alot of negative space. The lights from the buildings look like randomly placed white dots. If there was a sky and was not black and white I think it would have more potential. Keep experimenting!

Why do you think it came out well? Asking because I want to know what you intended for us to see?

Crank the exposure up about 2.5 stops and you can see the building outlines. I think it improves the image a lot. As it is all you see is little spots of light.

I'll bet the color is more interesting.

It looks terribly underexposed to me.

You'll get much better results shooting skylines while there's still some color in the sky...sorry to say, but this one isn't doing it.

All of the above.
Black and white night time skylines work better when at least building outlines are recognizable.
Why are you shooting at F10? At this distance, DOF isn't an issue.
Why make your focus point the street light, when the buildings / buiding lights are the point of interest?
Why put the tallest structure that the absolute edge? Move it in to the left (one 3rd from the edge), and view that composition. The far left has nothing really in it, so losing that wouldnt be a great loss.

Color would make for a better picture here; you're picture partially covers a road, and over the course of the long exposure you would see a multitude of colors, hinting of a busy skyline

Here is the colour version ,

Im not try anything really , I just wana a nice photo of a city skyline ,

I manually made the outline of the buildings darker and the sky darker , the original the sky is very bright and distracting , I will get the original for you guys its still on my camera , here is a Coloured version with some processing done to it.


I was told that to get the best DOF you should focus 1/3 of the way into a picture.

I could not center the tall building any more as there was a wall to my right.


Thx again :

Option 1) Original no processing:

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I like option 3 best.

porky101 wrote in post #12005670
Here is the colour version ,

Im not try anything really , I just wana a nice photo of a city skyline ,

I manually made the outline of the buildings darker and the sky darker , the original the sky is very bright and distracting , I will get the original for you guys its still on my camera , here is a Coloured version with some processing done to it.


I was told that to get the best DOF you should focus 1/3 of the way into a picture.

I could not center the tall building any more as there was a wall to my right.


Thx again :

Ignore that advice...generally speaking, its nonsense. A lot depends on the focal length of the lens you're using, whether you're shooting vertical or horizontal, and whether or not you have a specific point of interest at the one-third line.

Night shots of city lights when its pitch black outside generally do not convey well...as stated earlier, try shooting a bit earlier (as in very late afternoon/early evening) to take advantage of the light...you'll get a much more compelling image.

hmm , thanks...I wana to get one printed , maybe 4 Feet in size....they are panaroma made up of 6 pictures...which one should I print?

I prefer 1 and 3.

You really do need some light in the sky for this type of shot. Your images are still about 2 stops under exposed IMO. If you can't see the buildings against the sky the lights are still just dots of light.

Post up the 'original' with the brighter sky?

Hi Titus ,

Thanks for this info , I was exposing for the lights , not for the buildings...must I expose for the dark stuff rather and not the lights??

Ill post another photo shortly.