First time using a DSLR - Thoughts? Night photography
- Thread starter Awhat
- Start date
Don Kuykendall_RIP
RIP :(
I need to limit it to one photo and upload it here so people do not have to leave the site to see it.
Horoscope Fish
Senior Member
I like the shot, it's well exposed and the color is great. Water really IS your friend when doing night photography.
That bottom right corner though on the second shot... Big, distracting element there. Edges/corners are a breeding ground for trouble so you have to be vigilant.
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That bottom right corner though on the second shot... Big, distracting element there. Edges/corners are a breeding ground for trouble so you have to be vigilant.
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okay great thanks, with the second shot I moved to a new area and completely forgot about the bridge I was on lol.
Cheers!
Okay will do. Cheers
OKay great it worked thanks.
I'll definitely be more vigilant of that next time cheers
Nice shots. What did you use to do post?
I usually underexpose night shots slightly. It enables you to retrieve more details out of the high-lighted areas during post. They tend to wash out quickly when normally exposed.
I took the liberty to show you what more you can pull out of the shot. It's a matter of personal preference of course.
I usually underexpose night shots slightly. It enables you to retrieve more details out of the high-lighted areas during post. They tend to wash out quickly when normally exposed.
I took the liberty to show you what more you can pull out of the shot. It's a matter of personal preference of course.
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I actually didn't use anything. I have no idea what to do for post and I haven't been able to find many tutorials,
can you recommend any / give me any tips / what you do for post?
Okay cool that makes sense cheers. so I.e instead of f11; f13?
That looks really nice! so how did you go about doing that? sorry for my post noobness haha.
Appreciate your help!
I use Lightroom which is fantastic. I think you can download the free trial version but I wouldn't know if it has limitations. You can also download the full version of View-NX2 or Capture NX-D at the Nikon site.
What is usually done for most landscape and night-shots is eliminating the highlights and shadows. The problem with those is that they tend to obscure the details captured. Once those are eliminated, you can set the whites and blacks and then increase clarity to push the details. After that, you bring the contrast back in. It's hard to explain when you're not using post but very easy to understand the moment you do post and change those settings.
It is best to shoot RAW when doing post since JPEG eliminates a portion of the information but even JPEG can be processed this way.
I don't know if you have exposure compensation on yours but it's easiest to use that to slightly underexpose. I use 1/3 to a full stop with the D3300 but I guess it's different for every cam.
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Horoscope Fish
Senior Member
You can download free trials of Lightroom and/or Photoshop on the Adobe website. The trial versions are un-restricted and good for 30-days. If you decide you want to start learning either one, I can assure you there are plenty of resources online to help you get up and running; you just need to know where to look.
Some of the free software is very good but once you get a taste of the overwhelmingly intoxicating power of Lightroom and Photoshop, there won't be any going back. Might as well start learning the software you're going to wind up using at some point anyway, right?
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Awesome I'll download it and have a mess around.
I think I do have exposure compensation, I have the D3200.
Thanks for your help mate
OKay great cheers I'll give them both a download.
Yeah definitely a good idea. thanks!
Just a little note about Fish's suggestion. Lightroom is an excellent product, but your computer will need RAM coming out of it's ears!
Yeah, once I start using too many brushes, my fan sounds like a rocket engine. My next buy is something new only to do post.
Now I solve it by saving it as a Tiff when it gets too much and then process that one further. LR uses ProPhoto RGB anyways so there's little loss.