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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Joseph Bautsch" data-source="post: 6771" data-attributes="member: 654">Marc - Sorry I'm late responding to your request for a critique. The hard drive on my computer died and I have spent a couple of days getting everything up and running again. The suggestion I have in shooting directly into lights like this is to use a neutral density filter to take out the glare. I have a set of ND1 up to ND3. I also have a CPL Polarizer which is in effect a 1.5 ND. In a shot like this the subject is the lights but they are not very attractive if they are just glaring at you. The important details are the ones in and around the areas lit by the lights. Those are the areas I would shoot for and I would let the dark shadows go black. The very bright lights put the f/stop range way out of anything most cameras (lens) can handle for a good exposure, consequently you are left with a lot of glare. If the camera was set in AE mode it is trying to average out the exposure between a lot of very dark shadows and extremely bright lights and that makes the glare and loss of detail in the highlights even worse. The best shooting mode is manuel with the shutter set on bulb and the f/stop set at it's maximum for the lens (for most it's in the f/22 range). The glare from the lights, for a good exposure, is up in the range of f/32 to f/40 and a ND filter of 2 or 3 (which filter will depend on how bright and how close you are to the lights) will be needed to get it down to the lens range of f/22 or less. The exposure time will increase significantly, to as much as 1.5 to 2 or even 3 minuets. In the composition there are a lot of other lighting elements competing with the lighted bridge as the subject and drawing attention away from it. The street stop lights actually dominate the shot. For my taste there is a lot of empty space that does not add anything to the composition. The large empty street area at the bottom of the shot is more distracting than helpful. The black night sky takes up the top half of the shot and is distracting. If the lighted bridge is to be the subject then it should be a lot more dominating than it is. It's a great idea and would make a really good shot. Maybe there is another place where you can get a better and closer view of the bridge. I would do more foot work, driving or walking around to find a place where you can get closer to the bridge and it's lights and place it in the view finder as the major element. If you can't find that place on this side of the bridge there may be one on the other side. A lot of work but would be worth the effort.Because you are shooting directly into the lights it will be difficult getting a single shot with a good tonal range. You might consider shooting a series of over and under exposures and merge them as an HDR.  Hope this helps.</blockquote>

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