night shots

[gokenin]

Ok first off just bought the pentax k100 last week but already I am impressed with the night shots its giving me (I know they are not equal to everyone here but still learning)

and one day shot

 

[Gdad]

The exposure looks good- what white balance are you using? They look a little warm- easily adjusted if you are shooting in raw.

 

[gokenin]

The exposure looks good- what white balance are you using? They look a little warm- easily adjusted if you are shooting in raw.

not sure but the top two were taken under those horrible new streetlights we have around here they are bright but they have a redish tint almost to the light so that might have been it but the exif just says manual so cant rememeber

 

[gruZ]

There's some good practice!

From the EXIF I see you are using ISO 800 to ISO 3200, and some pretty slow (relatively speaking) shutter speeds. I am assuming these were tripod shots...if so, back the ISO down to 100 and compare the pictures. You'll overall see less noise with the lower ISO shots.

The shutter speeds will need to be dramatically longer with the lower ISO, but if using a tripod this shouldn't matter.

 

[AndrewWG]

Gokenin,

I hope you don't mind but I thought I would play around with the top pic to see what I could get for colors from it using PSE 5.0. Although the whole pic is kind of drab looking now, I think that (like Gdad said) if you shoot in RAW, you could adjust the white balance and get some real nice shots. From a jpg, this is what I ended up with:

I was able to get some green from the grass and kill that awful yellow/red light but it is still quite drab. Try these shots again in RAW and change the white balance and see what looks best. Those lights are terrible! Actually, this shot looks pretty good just totally black and white.

 

[Groucho]

I've found that nearly every photo can benefit from having a little white balance tweaking. In a scene with both sun and shade, the camera might balance off the sun and you want the colors right on the shade, or the fluorescent lights are just a slightly different temperature, or quite often, you'll find that a color that might be slightly more accurate isn't quite as pleasing. To say nothing of just about every digital camera on the sun being incapable of detecting tungsten light properly, making everything yellowy.

The first couple shots are particularly tough for white balance as there's a lit interior clearly visible as well as the exterior - you're stuck with either the inside or the outside not looking quite right. (Unless you go really nutty and do it twice and use Photoshop to combine them!) Photos taken inside during the daytime have similar problems, when you balance the WB for the people inside, what you see outside turns bluish. The perils of white balance... but all that is a good reason to shoot RAW; even if you don't mess with the WB now, you have the option of going back later, and it completely removes the need to even think about it when taking the photo.

Anyway, having a nice usable ISO 1600 is pretty liberating, isn't it? 3200's handy too in emergencies. (Like inside PotC!) But like gruZ said, most of those shots don't actually need to go quite that high, especially the ISO 3200 one, where your aperture is a very high F13. Generally, I think it's best to keep it in Auto ISO (which by default goes up to ISO 800, though you can change that) and only go higher when you see your shutter speeds getting long enough that you're getting unwanted motion blur.

 

[gokenin]

I have to say I am impressed coming from the s3 to a dslr the night shot ability makes the move worth it to me alone. I do like having the ability to punch it up to 1600 and none of those were worked at all they are straight from the camera. no tripod used but they were taken from my truck so the arm was braced that helped in clarity. Groucho thanks for suggesting the pentax by the way it is a great camera so far

 

[Groucho]

I have to say I am impressed coming from the s3 to a dslr the night shot ability makes the move worth it to me alone. I do like having the ability to punch it up to 1600 and none of those were worked at all they are straight from the camera. no tripod used but they were taken from my truck so the arm was braced that helped in clarity. Groucho thanks for suggesting the pentax by the way it is a great camera so far

I'm glad to hear that you're liking it! No matter which one you choose, it's rare to find an unhappy owner of any DSLR.

 

[SharonLowe]

not sure but the top two were taken under those horrible new streetlights we have around here they are bright but they have a redish tint almost to the light so that might have been it but the exif just says manual so cant rememeber

Those are tungsten lights and to balance the red, you should try shooting in Fluorescent or tungsten mode. You can adjust later in raw but it is best to shoot in right mode. Another tool that helps is the Expodisc:

http://www.expoimaging.net/

They are great in any situation but are particularly helpful with night photography.