I stayed after Illuminations the other night and took some shots of England after everyone had left. They are better than I used to take but I am seeing much better nighttime architecture pics on the internet. ; Just curious what techniques others are using that get nighttime buildings to pop. ; Thanks - Garry [attachimg=1] [attachimg=2] [attachimg=3] [attachimg=4] [attachimg=5]
These are pretty much right there, i start F8, iso 100 , 6 seconds and then adjust from there with shorter or longer times. Unless something is completely blown out i keep them all until i can look at them on the larger screen. Of course this is absolutely of a tripod or some other kind of rock solid support. Maybe lighten the exposure just a little in your editing program. I use lightroom and here is what i would try, lighten the exposure just a little, darken the contrast slider a very small amount, put a 8 on clarity and a 4 on vibrance and saturation. You could try moderate on tone curve, but i'd expect linear is the better choice, lastly slap a lens correction if your gear is in the list. i had a a little time on my hands, too cold and windy for ; any thing outside more than horse survival care, so i did pretty much what i proposed above to the third of the photos, i did a little more with the sliders than i gave you, although as i suspected linear is the better tone curve setting, if you work in lightroom let me know and i'll email you this preset so you can see what i did
Thanks Gary for the advice. Your suggestions were helpful, especially increasing the exposure a little. I went back out to MK last night and may post some of those later (however I see a lot of difference in the lighting between England and Main Street.) I don't have Lightroom but use Aperture which I think has many of the same adjustments. ; Joining this Forum has been very helpful.
If you want to create star burst effects on the lights, stop it down to f/16 or f/22. ; If you are in Aperture priority mode, your shutter speed will adjust. ; Use the lowest ISO you can, too.
