Downtown Birmingham at night

This is my first attempt at night time freeway photography. They did not turn out nearly as good as I would like. Please give me some sugestions on how to make them better.

They do not seem to sharp to me and they are very noisy especially the other ones from the shoot. I am guessing the noise is coming from the long exposure and the fast that I am exposing for the lights so much of the frame is underexposed, but i have seen several shots like these that seem much cleaner. What is the secret?

Both shot at iso 100

1.

Great shots.

Good work! How long was the shutter speed on those?

Here's one I snagged from the other night:

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the shutter was between 15 and 30 seconds cant remember exactly

Correct me if I am wrong, however I was always taught that a good "starting" point is
ISO 100-F11-TV 30secs?

macca172 wrote in post #8667695
Correct me if I am wrong, however I was always taught that a good "starting" point is
ISO 100-F11-TV 30secs?

I guess that could be a good starting point, but you can't just use those settings for every highway night shot, the lighting is not always the same as with any shooting situation. When shooting at a shutter of 30 for this shoot the aperature was around 25, on a crop camera you begin to loose much detail when shooting above F15. If i shot at 30 seconds at f11 it would have been way overexposed for the lighting i was in. With night shooting it takes a bit more experimenting to get the desired effect.

The ISO 100 bit is good though if you have a good tripod it is best to use iso 100, as there tends to much more noise in these shots due to the intense shadows and dark spots.

Subfightersandman wrote in post #8668015
I guess that could be a good starting point, but you can't just use those settings for every highway night shot, the lighting is not always the same as with any shooting situation. When shooting at a shutter of 30 for this shoot the aperature was around 25, on a crop camera you begin to loose much detail when shooting above F15. If i shot at 30 seconds at f11 it would have been way overexposed for the lighting i was in. With night shooting it takes a bit more experimenting to get the desired effect.

The ISO 100 bit is good though if you have a good tripod it is best to use iso 100, as there tends to much more noise in these shots due to the intense shadows and dark spots.

Yes I agree, however my photography teacher and as stated "starting point " only and work from there. I have employed this technique for years and has worked me for so far. There again I must confess, I do not shoot moving lights that much!