City at Night

I figured I would need to start posting a few pics to get feed back so here are a couple of shots from last summer.
Thoughts are appreciated.

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i like the 2nd.. with the public transit cabs infront of the train station... fits in well.

i do not like the Chevy Avalanche infront of the first one. maybe i just hate chevy avalanches. ok i do, but id still say the same if it was something else.

also the shots are pretty noisy.. is that controllable?

i agree with ifan, the first photo is somewhat not pelasing to the eye because of the color difference and the angle. i would say if you were to shoot from more of a frontal angle it may have been better, also i would say a smaller vehicle would have helped because it is not drawing as much attention.

the second photo is decent. personally i would have gotten closer with a wider lens and used a longer shutter speed to reduce the noise.

not that your images are bad, just that they can be better and hopefully the tips you receive will help you to excel in the future

#1: Too much noise. Not so good composition. SUV's not interesting, building is not interesting....
#2: True, the whole building is in the frame, but what's the point of that? I heard one artist said in the past: "Photography is not about documenting stuff, it's about telling a story." This is not the case yet.
Just my honest, no b.s. opinions.

The feedback is helpful. I know that I'm moving from taking snapshots to thinking about taking photographs. Hopefully the pictures I'm taking today are better than these I took last year.

That's the right attitude. Keep on shooting and enjoy the learning process. We all learners here.

the first photo and the second to a lesser extent seem to have color problems associated with the color temperature of the available light. This is a problem with night photography and mixed color light sources. It looks like there was a lot of sodium vapor lighting mixed with tungsten incandescent lighting.

Wayne

As I remember the setting I'm sure there were a variety of lights. So is there a way to compensate for the different lights and there effect either pre or post processing?

The only way to deal with this type of situation is to use layer masks and adjust the color in various areas one at a time. I know how to modify the color temperature in Camera Raw, but not in JPG's. I think that one could balance the color for each temperature in a different copy of the image, then combine them using masks, but I am not that good at photoshop.

Wayne

i like WMS's idea. If you shot RAW.. make a few copies and adjust WB in the images separately, and then mask/clone/blend in Photoshop. if you REALLY like the picture then its worth the effort. its good practice too, but I wouldnt bother with all that unless I really wanted the picture perfect. If the composition was great but colors off, id do it.

if the composition leaves some to be desired, id just forget about and wait until i got the composition i wanted.

Thanks for the suggestions. I wasn't shooting in RAW yet last summer when I took these pics and not sold on them as something more than to use as background on my computer. (They do generate some discussion when folks see them.) Night photos interest me and so the suggestions for processing light adjustments are a good idea and one that I'm sure I'll try along the way.

While roaming the net I found this link; http://www.cambridgein​colour.com/forums/thre​ad274.htm which is a tutorial on making white balance adjustments on a JPG photo. I haven't tried it as it is 3AM here and I really should try to get some sleep.

Note the cabs look like they should be white and this would make an excellent place in these photos to use to adjust the white balance from.

Wayne

You're onto a winner with the second location. If it's nearby you should head back and shoot some more.

Like the others said, shoot in RAW and fix the white balance in photoshop if necessary.

Also, try shooting at a lower ISO. Do you have a tripod?

thanks for the suggestions
Both shots are from downtown Denver, not a place that I get to often, but it was a beautiful summer night and so taking my camera and mono-pod with me I enjoyed the walk with friends. I'll have to think about some of these suggestions when I get back that direction.

My $0.02 -

Don't like the first one - remind me of a stake-out or something. Like a surveillance photo. I can't get past it, but that's not why i'm replying...

The second one, i actually like a lot. The composition, the slightly photojournalistic tilt, maybe some grain, maybe some blur - i'm sorry, i like it!

The "off color" that everyone's talking about really works for me. First, it helps balance the red/yellow sign at the top. Second, that is *so* characteristic of these buildings. Majestic facade up top, gritty underneath.

Let me believe that the story under the awning is a different one from the story above!

matt