Some help and advice please.

OK..

The scenario is:

1 New 40D bought with the kit lens (which seems like it will stay in my camera case from now on....because: But after coming here and lurking about, I went out and purchased these:

17-55mm f/2.8 IS USM
and
Tokina AT-X 100mm f/2.8 Macro

Anyway, I have not had the opportunity to really use the macro yet, but tonight I went out and about and took a few shots with the 17-55.

This is one shot that to me looks fine, but, putting composition aside as I was really testing low light and how clear this lens is...what can i do to improve this:

increase shutter speed to 0.2 to reduce the glare from the street lights and it would be perfect. Nice lens.

I agree with GFP on the shutter speed.. also, this almost looks too sharp.. did you run this through the USM filter? The DOF is bugging me.. maybe a smaller aperture?

Very clear shot though, I'm always impressed with the 40D.. I'm jealous

You have to ask yourself, "was the scene really this bright when I was looking at it?"

If you decide that it was not, then you might want to try processing it for a lower key.

I think that even with links to other hosts, the image files should be kept smaller out of consideration for dial-up members. Also, the rule of 800 pixels maximum in the longest dimension should be respected in order to keep from having to scroll to see the whole image. Please see the sticky at the head of this forum for posting rules!

Welcome to the POTN!

Yeah good call..

*sorry for exceeding the limit, I will remember next time..Its the 'problem' of using a 1680X1050 resolution!

All of you..

First its shot like this from the camera. I did not do anything to it other than reduce its size for uploading to my server.

It was 'darker' on the street then this. I was actually really amazed once the shot was taken to see how bright it was and as you can see I used no flash. That lens sure captures some light!

I'm going to try again, as I was looking for a more realistic shot in terms of light.

I like this Town shot alot don't think you should change anything, but do change the size of your uploaded photos.
Regards..

OK I changed the size. Sorry.

TekHouse wrote in post #4282134
Yeah good call..

*sorry for exceeding the limit, I will remember next time..Its the 'problem' of using a 1680X1050 resolution!

On the other hand, how lucky you are to have such a large monitor that will support such a high screen resolution

The resulting exposure is therefore the result of the very nature of auto-exposure. It tries to bring the overall scene to an average level of 18% middle gray - whether that is appropriate or not. In this case you explicitly set it up for a +1 Exposure Correction.

(I am presuming here that you used an exposure mode that more or less averages out the entire scene, and also assuming that you used one of the modes that follow conventional auto-exposure algrorithms. I'm confused, myself, about "Evaluative" metering.)

Then you are more or less forced into an appreciation of the Zone System, which may require you to put in about -1 f-stop of Exposure correction. Whatever you do it is going to be adversely affected by those street lights, so long as they are included in the frame. The best thing to do is bracket around the best guess and then follow the precept of Henri Cartier-Bresson's "The Decisive Moment" - in other words, decide which one you like from the proof sheet