Night at Herman Park

This evening JDawg and I spent a couple of hours at Herman Park (home of the zoo for those of you not familiar with it) with the D90 and a tripod. We took over 100 shots, gotta love digital cameras.

I would like some feedback on several of the shots.....and yes I am addicted.

I really like that last one... It just kind of makes me think of spy thriller, someone sitting at a bench and sticking a message on the underside, then casually drifting away into the damp night...

Sigh....until my furnace died, I was going to get a D90. Scott provided all kinds of help, I had it ready to push the send button and then it got cold in the house. You sure are taking some nice pictures there doc.

only 100, just wait eventually you'll be taking 1000 at a time

Was the bottom one touched up or is that just how it came out? Im not that good at photography and they all look great specially the bottom one. A friend of mine used to be big into photoshop and he would find pictures like that and add faint ghosts in there that you would really have to look to see.

Scott, thanks. There's some others I really like, but picked what we thought were the best to ask for critique/comments on.

psuedoarchon, I have to admit I "cheated" on the last photo. We use Picasa as our photo software, until I get light room beta up and running, Picasa has an edit capability called focal b&w. JDawg took that photo and then we tweaked it to capture the slight bit of color. The lamps were actually 2 different colors (orangish and white).

Poser.....well it would have been 200-300 if I had not gotten frustrated with focusing in the dark. I have a great shot of a "window" in a wall at the park that took 30 sec to expose. But alas the 3 or 4 versions of it were out of focus which I suspected at the time.

Dennis....too bad the heater couldn't have died in the summer....then you would have had the funds to buy the D90. Sorry about that, it was too tempting. If you get to the point of buying one I highly recommend getting it from Precision in Austin vs going online. I have gotten 2 e-mails from Precision thanking me for making the purchase locally versus the internet. They've got my business. Houston Camera Exchange could care less about selling me anything, we've been in there 2x and no one would take the time to wait on us even after asking for help. And Camera Co-Op, don't even get me started on them Their customer service is really bad, they were more worried about standing around a heater and keeping warm than helping us.

Cheating or not I think part of being a good photographer (at least now that we have computers) is being able to take your photos and make them look awesome like that

I'll agree with Scott... I also like #5, it's the best of the bunch and the computer tweaks didn't go over the edge like they could have. Photographs should tell a story or give reason for some emotion - if they don't they become simply snapshots.

I've seen several pictures (forum-wide) that didn't meet that criteria and often wonder if knowing the motivation behind the shot would make a it more pleasing. If there was a particular effect one's trying to achieve it would be helpful to say "I'm working on....., tell me if I did it or how to improve." If there's a story that only the photographer would be privy to then a few well chosen words or title might fill in that gap for the uninformed.

With that said, I did not understand the "story", motivation, technique for pictures 1 through 4 - but that's just my opinion and worth exactly what you paid for it. On the other hand, I see some areas that could be addressed for future pictures from a more technical point of view - or at least what I'd consider doing.

Shot 1 seems slightly tilted with the right side higher. This might be the actual topography or magnified by the large burned-in street light. It could be the tripod was on a sloped surface with no more tilt adjustment left on the head - shortening one leg would put the "horizon" on a level plane. I also strive to put the horizon line on the "thirds" of the picture whenever possible and avoid bisecting the frame.

Shot 2 had a wildly overexposed street lamp that dominated and resulted in a green flare spot. A suggestion would be to use the subject in an eclipse fashion in front of the streetlight - that might eliminate the flare spot as well. Note again the tilted horizon line - possible magnified by the tilted subject as well.

Shot 3 appears overexposed all around - a little computer tweaking to balance out the lower left hot-spot would have been nice. Moons are very difficult to include in pictures - they often appear much smaller in print than to the naked eye, they tend to burn into a white blur in order to properly expose the foreground, they tend to be a distraction unless they're the focal point of the picture.

Shot 4 also has a hot-spot in the lower left corner but the real distraction for me was the tilted building. While the tree might be the focus of the shot, the building in the background catches your eye. For a good example, look at photo 5 and you'll see the building and horizon lines are level/plumb and makes for a better overall shot. I took the liberty of rotating this shot and some tweaking to cool it down - those low pressure sodium lights really mess up color rendition.

Night photography and bulb settings are a hoot to play around with. It's even more fun with the digital aspect and not wasting film. I remember my first digital camera (whopping 2 mega pix) and how my shooting techniques got lazy. My composition mistakes were easily corrected by cropping - same with exposure... I spent more time fixing the pictures on the computer than I should have had I just paid attention to basics (composition, viewfinder awareness, bracketing, etc.)

I consider this a motorcycle forum first - with a photography sub-forum. I'm no expert at either but learned a lot about both from people who shared the good and bad aspects with me. Hope you don't mind me sharing.

txbanditrydr--Thanks for the detailed comments/critique. It was very much appreciated.

The pictures are tilted because of the tripod, either ground position or head position. I have a 1980's vintage Sears tripod that has about 6 adjustments to the head from rotation to tilt....etc. It was hard to get the shots level. I did finally figure out how to turn on the grid in the viewfinder so that helped a lot. Hence #5 was level.

The shot you worked on I was attempting to shoot the Transco Tower through the crepe myrtles about 2 blocks away, hence the "leaning" appearance of the building. In reality the tree in the original shot was straight up and down and due to the angle we were at it gives the building that off kilter appearance. The problem was I did not want to focus on the tree, I wanted to tree slightly out of focus and the building more in focus. And then there's the whole tree being very light...I gotta keep working on my iso settings.

On shot 2 JDawg was leaning against the table so the tilt of the camera was in deed magnified. Next time I will try the eclipse idea.

On 3 I wanted the light to flare into the corner of the shot. I thought it would give it a bit of a mysterious lighting effect. Didn't work. The shot actually looks really good in B&W or Sepia.

I do really appreciate all of your input. Now I have to put a level on the tripod.

Doc....tip for focusing in the dark:

If you can, shine a flashlight on the subject you want to photograph, once the camera gets focus lock, place the lens on manual, compose the shot and then take it.

Or place the lens in manual, use "live view" and then focus using the screen instead of the viewfinder.

Thanks. I will toss a small LED flashlight in he gear bag to use in the future.

txbanditrydr said:

I consider this a motorcycle forum first - with a photography sub-forum. I'm no expert at either but learned a lot about both from people who shared the good and bad aspects with me.

Click to expand...

I agree. The reason I agreed to do the subforum is because photography and motorcycling seem to go hand in hand with all the ride reports and such. Like you, I have learned a lot just from reading these threads. In fact, I have learned a lot about a wide range of topics here beyond strictly motorcycles. Still, we try to focus on the main thing, you know... like PIE!!

STScott said:

Doc....tip for focusing in the dark:

If you can, shine a flashlight on the subject you want to photograph, once the camera gets focus lock, place the lens on manual, compose the shot and then take it.

Or place the lens in manual, use "live view" and then focus using the screen instead of the viewfinder.

Click to expand...

+infinity

I know this, and still forget at times. Another trick, if you happen to have forgotten a constant light source in the dark and are taking pictures of people (don't do this, it makes you look like a dufus), is to have someone hold a cell phone up and illuminate the LCD in the same general plane as your focusing point. I've, sadly, used that one a time or two. I really need to just buy another LED light and keep it in my camera case at all times!

Thanks. Never would have thought of the cell phone. Would have worked great with J's iPhone in flashlight mode.