About town

[kickstan]

[Dave Humphries]

Hi Stan,

Interesting feature staircase that, it is a shame it has deteriorated so.

In photographic terms, it is quite a 'busy' picture, here's what I might do to help;
At time of capture, lowering the camera about 6 inches (15cm) would have separated the staircase from that distant building's roof line.
Possible a different arrangement of passers by in the background would have been better.
Beyond that, I might clone out the pipe, which I find quite distracting.

Difficult light conditions, but I think you've done as well as I could have.

Regards,

[kevinbythebeach]

yah nice image,,,,

I'd do the opposite of dave and shot it from a higher angle..so that the top step blends flush with the edge of the bridge instead of showing that few feet of walkway....

reminds me of a DNA helix

[carregwen]

Stan

I really couldn't work out how an exposure at f5, ISO200 taken in bright day-light could only have a shutter speed of 1/100. Then I noticed that you used 'spot' metering, which is inappropriate here. General matrix exposure (of whatever it is on the D300) was the was to go, I think. The spot metering has made for a longer exposure due to the darker area in centre-shot of the concrete staircase, and has made the area behind the staircase too bright. If the stair-case was too dark on matrix metering, you could have used flash to help lift it.

Can you see how useful it is to post EXIF?

Composition-wise. I think the shot is quite busy. I would have stood up on that bridge at the top and shot down the spiral to get a nice geometric abstract - if that was possible.

Is it Birmingham? This could be a new 'guess the location' thread.

[Colin Southern]

Stan

I really couldn't work out how an exposure at f5, ISO200 taken in bright day-light could only have a shutter speed of 1/100. Then I noticed that you used 'spot' metering, which is inappropriate here. General matrix exposure (of whatever it is on the D300) was the was to go, I think.

Although ...

... this is quite a high dynamic range scene, and I suspect that evaluative/matrix metering would probably have tried too hard to protect the sky in the background resulting in the steps being quite under-exposed, whereas they have guite a good range of tones as they stand.

Personally I'd probably have gone for partial metering, positioned over the steps (something is going to have to give anyway in terms of exposure) (unless one wanted something more akin to a silhouette shot).

Flash could help, but I doubt it would be very effective over that kind of distance in the middle of the day.

[kickstan]

Thanks for the comments guys, I'm still figuring out things with the D300. As for composition, I was sitting in my truck at a red light and just shot until the light changed.


Nikon D300, 50mm, ISO200, 1/160s @ f6.3


Nikon D300, 26mm, ISO200, 1/100s @ f5