Christmas City, PA

Spent a chilly night finishing our Christmas shopping in Bethlehem (PA) last night. Lovely old town that is having a bit of a renaissance in recent years. While the wife was ducking into and out of shops I was on the street with my new D600 and a tripod.

Moravian Chapel



Main Street at night



An old Blacksmith Shop just outside the Hotel Bethlehem. The colors just didn't seem to work together so I gave B&W a shot. Glad I did.

Very nice Jake! What settings did you use for these shots?

Nice shots Jake!

Thanks, Ted & Rick. Info should be in the exif data, but here you go...

Chapel: ISO 400 (before I remembered to drop it to 100), 1.3 sec @ f/14. I had used the brush back out the exposure inside the dome so you don't lose detail.

Main Street: ISO 100, 10 sec @ f/14. Other than turning on the lens profile in Lightroom this is untouched. It was kinda cool the high red lights are from a delivery truck that almost rear-ended the car trying to park.

Blacksmith Shop: ISO 100, 25 sec @ f/14. A lot more work on this one, in Lightroom and then Silver Efex Pro 2. In LR: 1) Far right of the frame was very bridge because of lights from the hotel next door, so I darkened along the entire edge. 2) The first arch of the bridge in the background was overly dark, so I lightened it up. 3) Post processing in Silver Efex Pro 2 the paths around the building were a little too light so I darkened them up. Could have done this in Silver Efex but missed it, and unlike using the Nik tools in Photoshop once you're out you can't go back in and readjust a smart layer (or whatever they call it). In Silver Efex Pro I used a fine structure preset which brought out not only the great detail in the building and bridge, but also the detail in the sky, which was absolutely missing in the color shot. I added a control point (what makes the Nik tools so effective, IMO) on the door to lighten it up and define it a little better, then replicated it and moved it to the other door for symmetry. Then I added a colored filter (think it was green or blue, or perhaps I shifted the color to somewhere in between) and reduced the opacity to somewhere around 40% to bring out the variation in the sky without making it seem overdone. For giggles, and so you can see what a great B&W tool Silver Efex is, here's the color image that I had started with (including the LR adjustments in 1 & 2 above).



These were all shot with the 24-85mm kit lens that came with the D600. I've got a B&W UV filter on there. Not sure if it's the lens, the filter or a combination of the two, but I absolutely love how it yields the 14-point starbursts at each light source in each shot. No post-production there.

Thank you for the info. I haven't done any night shots and was wondering where to "start". I'm surprised at the low ISOs. Nice work.

Even though I'm a big fan of SilverEfex, I really like the color version, too. My wife is from Philly and it seems like every corner you turn down in Center City is photo-worthy. Last time I was there I was still shooting with my N90 and was a total scrooge with my film. Now I'm thinking I could run up a Tb or two of images without breaking a sweat.

I'm an absolute trial and error guy, Ted, and have come up with some things that work for me, but a lot of times it's "take a shot and adjust". I like the idea of low ISO noise, so I will always shoot as low as possible. And I like the idea of removing moving objects from streets and sidewalks, so the low ISO, medium aperture usually allow me to go long enough that people and even cars disappear, while everything else shows up. For example, in this shot I went as long as 90 seconds and had no fewer than a dozen people walk from the building int he background straight at me.

This is counter to what I've been learning about night photography and capturing star light. There it seems that you want to allow as much light in as possible in as short a time as possible so as to not get your star trails (unless that's exactly what you're going for). It's light as the star (pun initially unintended) vs. light as supporting actor. The great part about digital is that all you lose is a couple minutes in narrowing it down on the first couple shots.

Dave_W said:

Even though I'm a big fan of SilverEfex, I really like the color version, too. My wife is from Philly and it seems like every corner you turn down in Center City is photo-worthy. Last time I was there I was still shooting with my N90 and was a total scrooge with my film. Now I'm thinking I could run up a Tb or two of images without breaking a sweat.

Click to expand...

Thanks, Dave. The color's not bad, but having looked at the scene in person last night it just wasn't as dramatic as I wanted it to be. Would have been great to try in HDR, but my hands were freezing and my wife was beginning to get impatient in the car. I may come back to it and see what I can do with it.