Long Exposures from Universal Studios Rooftop

So I come from a video background so I have a good grasp of all the concepts used in photography, I just am learning how to re-apply them. These are all unmodified, just uploaded to flickr.

Canon T2i | 18-55mm stock lens

bump for feedback...

They look great but it looks like the horizon is not level in #1 and #3..

noted, does it have a significant image quality impact to rotate the canvas 2-3 degrees in post? I would imagine that would have serious ramifications to the full size image, though when compressed for web I guess it would probably be a moot point.

I shot my car just a couple hrs ago to try out some more long exposure. Do you recommend keeping the ISO below 800 for long exposure, I noticed measurably more grain in my pics with ISO at 800, in both shoots. Which seemed rather surprising to me since I always thought 800 was a moderate ISO for DSLRs.

If you shot in RAW and are rotating using ACR or Lightroom you shouldn't notice any problem.

As for the images themselves, I'm not really digging any of the waterworld shots. Can't quite put my finger on why, it may be how overpowering the foreground is compared to the background, it may just be a taste thing.

The last one is better, I'd just clone out the contrail on the top left.

Thanks, yeah I saw that as a problem throughout shooting, wasn't able to get an even light balance, tried as best I can.

Forgot to switch back to RAW, was shooting random crap before and didn't want to waste space in RAW. Would have made a big difference, but I just took the jpgs straight from the camera and posted em.

My eye just wanders around in all of these shots. There's no real concept to them, so the eye struggles to find things to connect and tell a story.

Harsh contrasting scenes are hard to shoot, and give something for the eye to focus on. Honestly, I'd keep your ISO at 100 most of the time. I'd only bump ISO up to pick up ambient light like stars etc. Otherwise, sticking at 100 and adjusting your shutter times will work better.

Yeah, I was having trouble trying to find things to focus on while shooting which really showed in the final product.

Will try keeping the ISO at 100, I was doing 200 a lot the other night when I took a few more pics of my car this time:

first car picture is mildly interesting. Others seem to be snapshots. The white wall is overpowering in the last shot.