Night Shots

[rpcrowe]

I have joined a night photography group so, with safety in numbers, will be able to do a lot more night shooting. My first photo jaunt was to the Coronado Ferry Landing to shoot the San Diego Skyline. here are the first two shots that I processed. Both were shot with a tripod mounted Canon 7D and a 70-200mm f/4L IS lens shot in RAW and post processed using NIK Software hosted by Photoshop CS6.


85mm, ISO 160, 30 seconds @ f/14


75mm, ISO 320, 1/30 second @ f/5.6

I noticed on the LCD's of other group members who were shooting with wider lenses that they captured a lot of sky and water with a small, narrow strip of skyline somewhere near the center of their images...

[allenlennon]

love the second one mate.

[AB26]

Richard this is stunning. Agreed with Allen, the second shot gives a bit more height to the buildings.

[Stagecoach]

Great clarity on both but I have to say for me it's the first one that gets the prize.

[Digital]

Very nice images.



Bruce

[Brownbear]

Stunning images, both. The first image is my choice.

[Wavelength]

Lovely

[Shadowman]

Very nice.

[rawill]

Mmm, both very nice, sharp and clear.
Usually I like the water to be less silky than in 1.
However, I like the brighter light in 1, makes the buildings more striking to my eye.

I wonder what a mix of 1 and 2 would be like, impossible to achieve.
What I am thinking is the water in 2 put on to the buildings in 1.

But then I suspect I would still choose 1! with the silky water.
And I think the extra building on the right in 1 adds so much more, by comparison, IMO leaves the 2nd one looking like it is missing something.

[TonyW]

These are nice and I find it hard to choose but if I had to I would probably choose the second.

I am interested to know why they look so different in colour. Is it a difference in exposure in the original pictures?

Is the texture of the water different because of the difference in exposure times or did the wind change?

[Daisy Mae]

Richard...I won't even try to choose.

Thay are both utterly stunning!

[rpcrowe]

Thanks everyone for the nice comments. I have other images to work on but, if I bring home two shots that I really like from a couple hours of shooting, I am fairly well satisfied. I will be doing a lot more night stuff now that I have joined the group.

Daisy Mae: My wife really liked the second one until she saw the first and then reversed her opinion...

Tony:

Difference in color = artistic license. I never worry about "correct" color for night shots. I simply choose what I like. It is only when the two are seen together that the difference is noticeable.

Difference in water = The smooth water was shot at a 30 second exposure. The other was shot at a 1/30 second exposure. Thirty-seconds is the longest exposure my 7D will give me. I really wanted to stop down even more to f/22 to increase the star-flare effect of the point source lights but, I would have needed to increase the exposure time (not an option unless I wanted to use bulb and count off the seconds) or increase the ISO (I really didn't want to go over ISO 320 since I knew that there would be a lot of black in the image and noise would be noticeable). I have ordered a third party corded release with a timer http://www.ebay.com/itm/320951903668...84.m1497.l2649
which would allow me to increase the exposure time over 30-seconds but, it has not arrived from China yet.

I fully realize that some terribly long exposures could heat up the camera and drain the battery. Perhaps this may be the damage some folks have written about the Magic Lantern Hack???

A third solution would be to install the Magic Lantern firmware hack which would also allow exposure times of over 30-seconds. However, I am a bit apprehensive about installing that on my 7D because I have read some warnings that it might hurt my camera.