Newbie here -- My first attempt at twilight

Hi everyone,
I picked up a D3100 about two weeks ago and it's my first digital SLR. I took an intro to photography class in college a few years ago and used a 35mm canon rebel. Since then I've wanted a digital SLR and finally got one!

For the past two weeks I've been reading up on things and experimenting with the camera -- trying to get familiar with it and all of it's capabilities. On my lunch break today I went to barns and noble and bought a digital SLR magazine where I saw a few twilight photos that really inspired me to try it!

I researched it for a bit today and went out right before sunset, headed not far up the road to Vermont's Circumferential Highway. I climbed a ledge and setup the tripod. Using my 50-200mm lens in the lower range with a UV filter. I set to manual mode and experimented with several settings. The picture below is at f/8, 30 sec exposure, and ISO-100.

Let me know what you truely think -- you won't hurt my feelings. I'm here to learn! I'd be intersted to hear what you may have done differently or any tips you have for shooting at twilight.

Thanks in advance!

-Derrick

Derrick, first let me welcome you to the Nikonites Community. You can help us to help you if you would complete your profile with a little info about yourself, your camera and the equipment you are using. That way we know who we are talking to and we can give more complete responses to your posts. That's a pretty good shot for a first time. Good composition. Getting a good exposure for a shot like this is difficult even for the most experienced photographer. Very good color in the sky. And the car lights streaking across the shot leads the eye right up to the sky. In your shot the foreground is a little too dark and needs more detail. There are two solutions. One is to take the shot when there is a little more sun light on the foreground. Not an easy task. Usually you will have just a minute or two when the light is exactly right to get a good light balance between the foreground and the sky. The other solution is to do a three shot HDR. Where you can get more detail in the foreground as well as in the sky. There are a lot of threads on this site on HDR shooting that you can find with a search. If you enjoy doing this type of shooting you can use the Photographers TPE to find times and locations for twilight, sunrise, sunset, as well as moon rise and set. Here is the link:

http://photoephemeris.com/

Profile Updated! Thank you for the feedback. I will check out that link for sure and do some reading on HDR.

-Derrick

Welcome Derrick, I like the shot & if its help your looking for, you've joined the right place, the people here are friendly & always looking to help.

Welcome aboard Derrick. I like the streaking lights, gotta try that sometime. Did you add color in PP? the red lights look great.

cnyram said:

Welcome aboard Derrick. I like the streaking lights, gotta try that sometime. Did you add color in PP? the red lights look great.

Click to expand...

Yes, I had to remove some green lens flare, enhanced the taillight reds slightly, and applied a violet filter.

-Derrick