First night shots

Hey guys, I wasn't getting much attention in the other thread I made in the Urban section, so I thought I'd post it here.

First two pictures were taken with my 18-55 IS lens with a fairly high ISO, the last one with a borrowed 50mm F/1.8. The picture was just a quick snap, so it was slightly blurry. Added the grain and desaturated as well as played with the color balance to distract from the movement

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Hey, I live there!

Anyway, in reverse order:
#3) I like it, and I like what you did with the color and grain to combat the camera's motion blur. Only advice would be since you've got bright light blurs near the edges of the frame, to stop down that from f/1.8 a couple thirds, since a narrower aperture will make those blurs less ovally and more round.

#2) I've shot the exact same sign ... overall it's good for that time of day, although cinema signs will benefit from a twilit sky more than a dark one, it's hard to control that. What focal length was this shot? 50ish?

#1) Unfortunately, there's not a clear subject in this photo. Also, with the combination of bright carnival lights and dark unlit buildings, there's probably too much difference between the light and dark areas for a camera to properly expose in one photo, which means you've got to either "HDR" it, or light the area yourself with a flash or flare gun or something.

Legal notice: I do not officially endorse using a flare gun as a light source.

Flare gun, lol.

#3 was shot at f/1.8 First time using the 50mm F/1.8, so I was just experimenting. I'll keep it in mind, I've found it to give better IQ at f/2.8 anyways.

#2 was shot at 49mm then cropped - too many carnival lights below.

#1 was shot in an attempt to portray distance, but with the crowds so close and FOV so wide, it didn't really work :P

Experimenting with those super-wide apertures is fun I agree but you're right, there's IQ issues in addition to the out-of-focus blur shape issues.

And regarding #1, now I see what you were trying to do. I think you'll find it works better with a longer focal length, though, around 135mm maybe.