First try at a night shot.

[Soulburner]

I attempted my first night shots last night. I had 1 good result out of about 6 different spots.

I used f/4, ISO 100, and the camera chose a 30 second exposure time which is the maximum. I still had to increase exposure slightly in ACR which means I could have used ISO 200 to speed things up a bit. Otherwise it turned out pretty good for a first try I think. The tree was the only movement as it was slightly windy, and it could be removed if I wanted.

http://i90.photobucket.com/albums/k245/BlackHawk2k6/Night%20Shots/DSC_1029Edit.jpg

It was much darker than this - with the sky mostly black to the eye, as well as the grass. Most of the color you see is from post-processing (Exposure, White Balance and Vibrance). I used manual focus, and put the lens at the mark just before infinity. In my experience so far with this lens, that is where it auto-focuses to when the focus point is farther than about 10 feet. I tried it slightly forward and back of that point and the results were softer so I stuck with it. The point I refer to is shown here:

http://www.photographyblog.com/images/products/tamron_17_50mm_1.jpg

I had the dot lined up almost exactly as shown. This will likely be the focus setting I end up using for most of my night shots in the future.

The thing I was worried about most was depth of field. I only used f/4 so I thought I may get some areas out of focus until f/8 or f/10, but perhaps with such a long exposure it doesn't matter as much. It all looks in focus to me. That brings me to my question though - do you generally use small or wide apertures? In most of my reading I found people opening their lenses up - but I get on here and I see people posting excellent pictures at f/10 and more so I'm not sure what the best approach is. Am I right in thinking aperture means less with long exposures in regards to depth of field? Obviously mine at f/4 was fairly sharp.

I intend to get into night time photography much more in the future :cool:

Comments? Criticism? Can't get better if I don't know what I'm doing wrong.

[Hor$eman]

I was expecting a night shot of a pc... if we want to see outside, we can look out a window!:shrug:

[WrigleyVillain]

I was expecting a night shot of a pc... if we want to see outside, we can look out a window!:shrug:

Damn dude you need to get OUT more. :lol:

Looks good to me Burner but wtf do I know.

[Hor$eman]

I was just kidding, :) good pic

[WrigleyVillain]

^ Good answer. ;)

[RAW-Raptor22]

Nice pic bro, im really a photo n00b but it looks nice to me. :)

[Kosior]

I like it. The only reseravtion I have is about the shadow on the wall on the right hand side. It's probably shadow of yours and it shouldn't be there ;o

[Cold Fussion]

If your going to use a wide a wide aperture, you might as well as well have a much higher iso. (the d80 should handle 1200-1600 iso fine) If your doing a long exposure, you might as well use a small f stop to maximise the depth of field.

[ls206]

really like the pic

[[XC] 2long4u]

DOF is pretty good the only thing you could improve on is the tree.

[Soulburner]

I like it. The only reseravtion I have is about the shadow on the wall on the right hand side. It's probably shadow of yours and it shouldn't be there ;o
If you look again, you will see the camera shadow as well. Nothing I could do about it. Hard to remove the camera and still get the shot ;)

If your going to use a wide a wide aperture, you might as well as well have a much higher iso. (the d80 should handle 1200-1600 iso fine) If your doing a long exposure, you might as well use a small f stop to maximise the depth of field.
It isn't that wide, the lens goes to 2.8 but maximum sharpness is had at F4-F5.6. If I had used a smaller aperture the camera would not have exposed for long enough - I already had to increase the exposure in ACR and this was maxed at 30 seconds. I don't understand your logic with the ISO - there is absolutely no way I would use a setting like that at night, the noise would be too much to handle and it would seriously degrade the image. You understand how shutter speed/aperture/ISO interrelate right? There is a time when high ISO is needed, and a long exposure is not one of those times. Most of the time 100-400 is fine on the D80.

2long4u;3013401']DOF is pretty good the only thing you could improve on is the tree.
I was impressed with the DOF at f/4. That was the main thing I was worried about in this shot, but with such a long exposure aperture doesn't mean as much. The tree I could probably remove from the picture if I wanted.

[Kosior]

I'd suggest getting rid of that shadow in Photoshop... There's a filter called 'Vanishing Point'. It allows patching the image without touching the perspective itself.

That's how I see it :

http://img254.imageshack.us/img254/7352/dsc1029editcopyup2.jpg

I can also help with the real image in higher resolution. Just pm me if want :P

P.S. I know that the post processing in the image above isn't perfect but I just wanted to post it fast :>

[Soulburner]

That isn't bad, the reason I didn't want to do it was because of loss of detail. It's real hard on that textured surface.

[MaxxxRacer]

looks good. I like the dynamic range of the sky.

I would always stick with the base ISO for night shots to reduce hot pixels. CCD's get confused with long exposures of absolute black and generally speaking, give lots of hot pixels. SLR's, with their large sensors, are not as prone to this, but it still happens at higher ISO's.

[berk]

I dont know enough to help you out ,but i will say i think the night time sky shot is too dramatic and focal to have that urban area in the same composition.I prefer silhouettes against night skylines.
It's too easy too ignore the rest of the pic because of that night sky,which is great !! :)