First crack at long exposure...C and C please!

Can you help me improve these shots for next time? This is really my first crack at night time photography and I found a relatively interesting subject to shoot at the farm this weekend.

What can I do better next time?

1:
shutter speed - 232 seconds
f22
ISO 400

Hmmm, your subject aren't interesting. It might be your courtyard, be try to get out and shoot something with more interest. Also, why so long exposure time? You're subject aren't moving. No need for several minutes.

If you need more critique, just ask. I don't want to say only bad things, but it's the critique corner. Saying only good things will not improve your photography

you need to find something more interesting. You use the bulb function to set it to that long? You can get the same result with just a few seconds and lower the aperture.

As nightime shots go, they dont particularly excite me. However, the silos do look interesting and I would like to see some against a polarized daylight sky.

you have a whole lot of great subjects to shoot here but chose to put them all in the same frame

In addition to above, consider shooting when it's not totally dark. Shooting after the sun has set, but before the onset of total darkness, can provide interesting color in the sky.

^^ Or early in the morning. A small mist combined with a lower view point and cropper diffenrently would be great.

The pictures look a bit tilted. I wonder if the tripod was level?

I like #2 more and the silos are certainly sharp, but I feel like a different perspective could make the picture look more appealing.

you could have accomplished basically the same results with a 10 second exposure..

SnapShot Photos wrote in post #11086875
you could have accomplished basically the same results with a 10 second exposure..

This is important to remember, because the longer the exposure, the more the light sources in the picture will just become stars, which might be cool if you want that, but usually it ends up as a distraction.

Also there's probably no reason to be using f/22, I feel silly but I only found out about this recently:

http://www.kenrockwell​.com/tech/diffraction.​htm

Basically this article states that many lenses for digital photography start to lose sharpness after f/8 or f/11, so keep that in mind when you shoot as well.

If you're going to be shooting stuff like this with a super long exposure, bring a flash light with you and play around with light painting.

http://www.lostamerica​.com/ue/index.html

This guy is probably my favorite light painting photographer, I would check it out if you're going to shoot this kind of stuff.

Sorry for all the links, but they are both worth at least a quick look.

gammatnt wrote in post #11085041
you need to find something more interesting. You use the bulb function to set it to that long? You can get the same result with just a few seconds and lower the aperture.

mltn wrote in post #11087071
This is important to remember, because the longer the exposure, the more the light sources in the picture will just become stars, which might be cool if you want that, but usually it ends up as a distraction.

Also there's probably no reason to be using f/22, I feel silly but I only found out about this recently:

http://www.kenrockwell​.com/tech/diffraction.​htm

Basically this article states that many lenses for digital photography start to lose sharpness after f/8 or f/11, so keep that in mind when you shoot as well.

If you're going to be shooting stuff like this with a super long exposure, bring a flash light with you and play around with light painting.

http://www.lostamerica​.com/ue/index.html

This guy is probably my favorite light painting photographer, I would check it out if you're going to shoot this kind of stuff.

Sorry for all the links, but they are both worth at least a quick look.

Shooting at a large aperture will not give the starburst effect...the aperture needs to be very small. Nothing wrong with f/22 in this instance. If this is what the OP was after, then his/her choice of aperture was correct.

But I agree about the subject matter...nothing there to hold the viewer's interest in this instance. I say "this instance" since most farms usually have a lot to offer as far as photographic subjects go.

Thanks for the comments everyone. I chose f22 for the starbust affect as has been pointed out - I thought it would add a neat touch to an otherwise not-so-interesting subject. The subject was convenient and i was shooting this photo for my in-laws - I wanted to capture this photo as it appeared. I agree that it likely isn't the greatest subject but I found it to be a good place to start with the longer exposure.

I'll try again next time.

Any other comments?

argyle wrote in post #11087964
Shooting at a large aperture will not give the starburst effect...the aperture needs to be very small. Nothing wrong with f/22 in this instance. If this is what the OP was after, then his/her choice of aperture was correct.

But I agree about the subject matter...nothing there to hold the viewer's interest in this instance. I say "this instance" since most farms usually have a lot to offer as far as photographic subjects go.

I didn't mean f/22 in this instance, I meant in general, did you read what I said about diffraction? In many cases going past f/8 or f/11 will decrease sharpness.

Although the subject isn't the most captivating, it looks like your interest was in the silos in the distance, next time get closer, they do look cool, so just make them the subject of the photo. Did you look at my link about light painting? It can really bring otherwise dull night subjects to life.