City Skaters

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Photo taken in Bryant Park 42nd Street, NYC. I would have prefered the skaters be betterr focused. I have gone back several times. I go to Times Square twice a week in the evening for Tai Chi classes. I have an hour to take photos before classes starts. Comments welcomed. Daniel[IMG]IMG_6367 by pongo now, on Flickr[/IMG]

[Shadowman]

Nice effort, you almost nailed the focus on the background buildings and that is what gives this particular capture an edge. It is possible to get at least one of the skaters in focus, you'd have to anticipate where you expect the skater to be and pre-focus on that spot, with a bit of patience you can get the shot you are after.

[Manfred M]

The image has a lot of potential, but it needs to be calmed. This is a mixed light situation so the white balance is all over the place. Some parts look overprocessed. Some issues with perspective distortion.

Another view of this could be....

[escape]

Nice effort, you almost nailed the focus on the background buildings and that is what gives this particular capture an edge. It is possible to get at least one of the skaters in focus, you'd have to anticipate where you expect the skater to be and pre-focus on that spot, with a bit of patience you can get the shot you are after.

I have since brought skaters into focus, just not with a composition I liked. Its very fluid and weather dependent. Thank you for commenting.

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Manfred: I missed working on the geometry on this one. The correction did improve it. It could use some comming as well. I would prefer less calming then your example. Will revisit this photo and see what I can do. Thank you for your input. Daniel

[rpcrowe]

Rather than being OOF, the skaters circled in blue are fuzzy due to image movement.



They are both closest to the camera and are traveling across the frame. Other skaters (obviously traveling at about the same speed) look sharper because they are a further distance away from the camera and most of them seem like they are coming towards the camera.

Generally you can effectively "freeze" movement with a slower shutter speed when it is a further distance from the camera and is traveling toward or away from the camera.

[Manfred M]

Manfred: I missed working on the geometry on this one. The correction did improve it. It could use some comming as well. I would prefer less calming then your example. Will revisit this photo and see what I can do. Thank you for your input. Daniel

The calming that I tried to introduce into the image had three parts:

1. Night sky is generally not the colour or brightness as in your original;

2. Ice is white, not yellow or orange; and

3. Brightness levels of the three areas of the image were clashing; the foreground is so bright that they buildings and sky don't look like they belong in the mix.

Again, this is my style and interpretation as to how to polish the scene, which is going to be different than yours.

[lovelife65]

Nice image and the edits improve it. The distortions are distracting, but overall a great effort and a fun scene.

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Thank you all for your replies and comments.

[Manfred M]

I took this photo back to light room and gave up.

The problem might be Lightroom. That tools is very good for global and area adjustments, but much weaker for doing local adjustments.

When I took this photo it was my second time at the rink and also my second time shooting at night.

Shoots like this, with bright lights in the building and on the rink and dark background are high dynamic range images. If you want to get the skaters without motion blur, that forces the photographer to shoot at a higher shutter speed and a higher ISO, which results in more digital noise which is especially noticeable in shadow areas.

The other issue with night photography with city lights is that the colour temperature of the various light sources tends to be all over the place; i.e. mixed lighting. Getting a white balance that works for everything is very challenging, if not impossible.

I found the scene very chalenging with the bright and dark areas. Still getting to know my cammera. Hopefully I wll get better results with time and practice.

Not at all surprising. The next time you shoot this type of scene, try different camera settings to see what they do for your image. Most of my night shots involve the use of a sturdy tripod, even when there are people in the scene.

[DanK]

This image brings up a common night photography issue for which I don't think there is one right answer. That is, how neutral do you want to make the image? There is no right answer because we don't actually perceive the image as neutral, and because the lighting is mixed.

Recently, I taught an introduction to night photography to a group that comprised experienced photographers, but mostly with no experience in night photography. As an introduction to this issue, I gave them this image, taken in blue hour:



One night photographer criticized this for not being neutral. So, I showed this one as well, which used one of the transoms for white balance, to eliminate the color cast:



With a single exception, all preferred the first image. One person explained: the second doesn't look like it was taken at night.

Here's another that shows the issue of mixed lighting that Manfred mentioned:



I did actually take some steps to undo some of the color casts. For example, I removed much of the yellow cast from the American flag (yellow from sodium vapor lamps). However, look at the tower on the right. (It's the old Customs House, for anyone who knows Boston). It's built with a neutral gray stone, but it's illuminated with warm light. After trying both ways, I opted to leave the color cast because that is how the place looks at night. I also think the image is more interesting this way. I raised this with the group, and most said they would leave it as is.

That's not to say that this is the "right" solution. Because the neither the night sky during blue hour nor most artificial lighting are neutral, the photographer has to decide how to deal with color. This is particularly hard when the colors are mixed; in some cases, casts that would be fine on their own look bad when compared with a different cast nearby.

Personally, I suspect I would have ended up somewhere between your original and Manfred's edit. Yours seems to me to be a bit artificial in the foreground (the rink and the building behind it), while Manfred's looks drab and, I am guessing, more neutral than you perceived the scene. Then again, I haven't been to Bryant park at night in more than a year, so I have no good memory of what it actually looks like.

[rpcrowe]

In many night shots, IMO a "pleasing" color cast is often better than an "accurate" color cast.

A problem with night exposures is over exposure of the bright lights. I think that this may be the most common problem that I have noticed in night photography. It can be mitigated by shooting bracketed exposures If there are no moving subjects in the shot, I like to shoot at least a 3-shot group bracketed by one stop for each shot, In addition to bracketing, I like to introduce a minus one stop exposure compensation. This will give three exposures starting with how the meter reads and with a one stop reduction for the second exposure and a two stop reduction for the third exposure. One of these exposures will usually be pretty close to the ballpark...

Including moving subjects in the image compounds the difficulty of a shot drastically. Needing to use a shutter speed that freezes the action is often difficult.

If there are no moving subjects and you are shooting over water, varying the shutter speed will determine the smoothness of the water. Varying the f/stop will determine the shape of point source lights and varying the ISO will go a long way to determine the noise in the image...

Shooting in RAW is pretty much the accepted way to expose because you can adjust the color balance easily in post processing. Using a processing program in which you can adjust portions of the image rather than adjusting the image globally will also be an advantage...

I often use NIK Viveza for doing local adjustments. The control point system makes it easy to isolate local areas and to adjust both color balance and brightness...

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Thank you all for the information you have all provided. I've been to this location at least 4 or 5 times testing camera settings and looking for a good composition. Will post if I get a good shot or something I have questions about.