Night Light

[dje]

I'm still on my learning curve for night shots. Here's my latest attempt of the Brisbane skyline from the Kangaroo Point cliffs. Appreciate any tips on exposure and composition etc for this type of shot. Taken about 30 mins after sunset.

Pls click on image for best viewing.

Cheers Dave

[AlexCascatau]

Hi Dave,

Exposure-wise I find the image very good, however it seems a bit crooked to me, straightening the horizon line would make it look better. Also, you could try to use the rule of thirds (placing the horizon line 1/3 of the way up).

[Sunray]

The picture is very nice to look at. In a larger format it even looks better. The 2:1 format works very well.
As Alex already mentioned it does need some minor corrections. The time the picture was taken was very good. Sky is still blue, not pitch dark. There is still enough ambient light to see details on the ships. I would clone out the white spots (stars ?) in the sky.

Robert

[Shadowman]

Very nice.

[FrankMi]

Hi Dave! Great composition, cropping, sky colour, reflections, and exposure.

If you do your own post processing, I would drop the brightness of just the buildings right of center and increase the brightness of the foliage and shoreline along the left side and far right. I like the stars in the sky, but for the three that have star trails, I would clone out the tails and make them round as you would have see them when you were there. With a curved river bank, you would need to carefully check to see if the buildings left, centre, and right are vertical to determine if the image is level but on my monitor it looks extremely close.

Well done!

[dje]

Thanks for your comments Alex, Robert, John and Frank. I appreciate you making the effort to comment.

I did adjust the verticality of the image during pp (using the grid) and I think the buildings are reasonably vertical. There may be a bit of an optical illlusion at play here !

I'll have a go at a bit of dodge and burn as you suggest Frank, but I'm not very good at that yet !! Here's my chance to give it a try. The star trails can be easily fixed ! The funny thing is that I didn't even notice the stars when I was taking these shots.

Cheers Dave

[Geoff F]

And increase the brightness of the foliage and shoreline along the left side and far right.

Alternatively, I would try cloning out the lights particularly in the bottom right corner and leave it rather dark. Either way is worth considering; but I find this corner a bit distracting as it is.

Overall though, an excellent shot.

[dje]

And increase the brightness of the foliage and shoreline along the left side and far right.

Alternatively, I would try cloning out the lights particularly in the bottom right corner and leave it rather dark. Either way is worth considering; but I find this corner a bit distracting as it is.

Overall though, an excellent shot.

Thanks Geoff. I see what you mean about the bottom right hand corner. It looks a bit untidy. I'll see what I can do.

Cheers Dave