train bridge - suggestions?

i don't know if it really matters, but it was handheld 1/15sec @ 20mm f/4 iso 1600

If you are going for a feeling of going towards depression then it's just right. I would have removed the whole sky from the crop since it adds nothing to the picture

i try to frame in camera as much as possible, and i think i kind of kept some sky to balance the extensive foreground a bit. i will look into a crop after a few more comments, but i think if i take out the sky, i would probably take out an equal amount of foreground, since it isn't very intersting, either. this might leave me with an almost square crop. any thoughts on this idea?

I can see no obvious flaws. It's underexposed and the sky is noisy. However, it really depends on what you were going for. Underexposure is often useful. Noise or "grain" is often added to an image for effect. The perspective is good: diagonal can be more dramatic than dead on.

Can't help you much there. Just was saying was I was thinking as I saw the pic. I myself have a big problem with choosing where to crop and what size to crop for(laptop wallpaper, 8x10, 13x19?)

joedlh wrote in post #8713128
I can see no obvious flaws. It's underexposed and the sky is noisy. However, it really depends on what you were going for. Underexposure is often useful. Noise or "grain" is often added to an image for effect. The perspective is good: diagonal can be more dramatic than dead on.

one thing i don't understand about exposure yet is how if shooting in low light, the camera metering will try generally to expose as if it were daytime. is anything less than that considered underexposed? here it was almost dark when i shot, so i just did all i could do to get as much light handheld as possible. the picture resembles how the bridge appeared at that time of day.

Moooney wrote in post #8713163
one thing i don't understand about exposure yet is how if shooting in low light, the camera metering will try generally to expose as if it were daytime. is anything less than that considered underexposed? here it was almost dark when i shot, so i just did all i could do to get as much light handheld as possible. the picture resembles how the bridge appeared at that time of day.

Camera meters are designed to render all scenes as if they were 18% gray. Your scene was darker than this. So your meter tried to lighten it up. Experience will teach you to evaluate the setting and determine when it requires under- or over-exposure to give you what you want. It looks like you're well on your way to appreciating that. If of course relies on you taking control from the camera and making some exposure decisions yourself. That's one sign of an experienced photographer.

joedlh wrote in post #8713251
Camera meters are designed to render all scenes as if they were 18% gray. Your scene was darker than this. So your meter tried to lighten it up. Experience will teach you to evaluate the setting and determine when it requires under- or over-exposure to give you what you want. It looks like you're well on your way to appreciating that. If of course relies on you taking control from the camera and making some exposure decisions yourself. That's one sign of an experienced photographer.

thanks for clearing this up. metering wasn't an issue with this shot--i shot this in manual to get as much light in as possible, then even bumped the exposure in post--i was just asking out of general curiosity.

Lose as much of the noise as possible, brighten it up.

HOSTED PHOTO
please log in to view hosted photos in full size.

jgrussell wrote in post #8714826
Lose as much of the noise as possible, brighten it up.

what did you do to remove the noise so effectively? you must have applied some sort of mast, eh?