A Night in Victoria, BC

[sushi]

please give your honest comments on this one. thanks!

i'm so sorry i still have to figure out how to post images.

[crisscross]

It looks as if the overall composition is good and there is enough of interest to make a good image, but IMO it is too dark as it is. Your success in PP will depend on how much PP you have already done to get this far as eventually you will introduce too much noise and possibly features best left in the dark. It looks promising in a quickie trial; make sure you increase saturation and contrast in proportion to the increase in brightness

[Colin Southern]

please give your honest comments on this one.

Hi Sushi,

These types of extreme contrast scenes far exceed the dynamic range that the sensor is capable of capturing ... so something has to give.

Usually it's best to expose so that the mid-tones can be brought up to an acceptable level in post-processing; this means that you'll have severely blown highlights, but that's just the way it has to be.

I've given it a 30 second Photoshop "make over" for you ...

- Adjusted Gamma to dramatically brighten the dark areas without significantly affecting the highlights

- Increased saturation

- Gentle sharpen to improve the appearance of the lights

- Crop away some dead area

What do you think?

[sushi]

It looks as if the overall composition is good and there is enough of interest to make a good image

Thank you for the positive point...

but IMO it is too dark as it is.

I am sorry but I have no idea about what IMO is.. I will definitely research on it, but if you can take the time to explain it, it'd be greatly appreciated!

Your success in PP will depend on how much PP you have already done to get this far as eventually you will introduce too much noise and possibly features best left in the dark. It looks promising in a quickie trial; make sure you increase saturation and contrast in proportion to the increase in brightness

I also do not know what PP stands for... noise would be the "grainy" look, right? Does saturation, contrast and brightness involve editing?

[Colin Southern]

I am sorry but I have no idea about what IMO is

IMO = In My Opinion

I also do not know what PP stands for

PP = Post Processing (eg editing the image)

noise would be the "grainy" look, right?

Yes

Does saturation, contrast and brightness involve editing?

Yes

[sushi]

Hi Sushi,

These types of extreme contrast scenes far exceed the dynamic range that the sensor is capable of capturing ... so something has to give.

Hi! hmmm... so when you say something has to give, that would be...? exposure?

I've given it a 30 second Photoshop "make over" for you ...

What do you think?

It's very "grainy".. "noisy"... I think I like my original shot better.. *love your own*


Thanks for the comments... wow.. there's really so much for me to learn.

[Colin Southern]

Hi! hmmm... so when you say something has to give, that would be...? exposure?

Hi Sushi,

It means that the camera isn't capable of recording detail in the lightest bits and the darkest bits at the same time - so you have to decide between retaining detail in the brightest parts (and having a very dark overall shot like you have), or retaining detail in the darker parts, but suffering blown highlights.

It's very "grainy".. "noisy"... I think I like my original shot better.. *love your own*

Unfortunately, noise is what happens when one has to stretch detail recorded as a shadow, into midtone levels. If it were me, I would probably have exposed that shot for about 4 times as long as you did, or shoot a series of bracketed shots and turn it into a high dynamic range photo.

[sushi]

If it were me, I would probably have exposed that shot for about 4 times as long as you did, or shoot a series of bracketed shots and turn it into a high dynamic range photo.

Can I get longer exposure by adjusting my aperture?

How do I make bracketed shots?

Can I please see a sample of a photo with high dynamic range?

Awwww... I will get a headache.. Thank you for patiently answering all my questions.

[Colin Southern]

Can I get longer exposure by adjusting my aperture?

You can, but that will reduce your depth of field - it's usually better to mount the camera on a tripod and use a longer shutter-speed (sometimes several minutes).

How do I make bracketed shots?

It depends on the type of camera that you have. Many have the ability to bracket a group of shots automatically - if it doesn't then you'd need to change the shutter-speed manually (without moving the camera).

Can I please see a sample of a photo with high dynamic range?

Sure - have a look through our high dynamic range forum

Awwww... I will get a headache.. Thank you for patiently answering all my questions.

No worries - that's what they pay us the big bucks for

[sushi]

Now that is the problem... lol

I don't own a tripod yet.. but I will definitely improvise. I didn't know you guys get paid for this... good for you then.

I'll keep taking pictures and just keep on posting them here to get them critiqued.

[Colin Southern]

I don't own a tripod yet.. but I will definitely improvise.

If you're going to shoot a lot of low-light scenes then it's the first thing you're going to need

I didn't know you guys get paid for this...

Me either!

I'll keep taking pictures and just keep on posting them here to get them critiqued.

Sounds good

[crisscross]

Sushi: I wasn't thinking of anything as drastic as Colin has done, but thanks Colin for the translations and explanations.

I notice that your posted file is very highly compressed, down to 75kb, for forum I suggest 250-300kb for 1200x800 image is more appropriate, maybe 150 for this one as so much is black. So anything you do on your original will have much less tendency to noise etc than what we do on the 75kb one.

Here is a 10sec upgrade in mac GraphicConverter (or any free/simple prog might do) just dragging brightness, contrast & saturation up about 50%. This has only introduced pin-point "blown highlights" which are fine for the subject and suggest you could have increased length of exposure considerably. You seem to have a Nikon, if it is a DSLR or P5/6000 you will find if you press the replay button and twirl a knob you see 'highlights' and it is fine to include small points of highlight.

Don't get flustered by it; the whole point of this site is to help people improve their photography by us all sharing our strengths and weaknesses.

[Colin Southern]

Sushi: I wasn't thinking of anything as drastic as Colin has done

I should probably mention that I did that edit on an uncalibrated screen, which I know is a wee bit out ... so hopefully I didn't make it too radical looking