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After buying the ML-L3 from Birdy on Friday, and receiving some fantastic information on how to take night time photos, I headed out to Tamarama bright and early this morning (only it was anything but bright).



I walked around to Bronte as the sky began to brighten and caught these





C & C welcome. I'd really like to hear how I can improve these, both at the capture stage and in PP. Thanks

These are lookin pretty good! I have never had the chance to capture these before, living in Canberra (and not being able to regularly travel due to uni).

My only comment is that I think you need to get a graduated ND filter.

In the second one, the sky is overexposed by a couple stops, but the water is near perfect.

However, in the third one, the sky is great, but the water is underexposed.

The addition of a grad ND would be great for these pics.

Just my $0.02

Tristan

Andrew

#1 is waaaay too yellow for me and my eye's get drawn to all that sand because of it. A crop off the bottom to reduce the impact of the sand would IMHO make a better image

#2 - another crop - this time to the top so the image starts just above the dark band of cloud on the LHS (thus remoeving all the blown area)

#3 - tone down the blue - otherwise a great shot.

Please note - I'm not trying to sound too negative here since you have the makings of three good images. For me (and not necessarily for you) I just think they could be made a lot better.

Hi Andrew,

can't add much more to the above. The graduated filter will work very nicely. If you don't like using filters, the other options is to bracket your shots, basically taking a few photos at different exposures.

Then in PP, you blend them together, so you end up taking the good sky from one, the nicely exposed water from the other, there you go, a perfectly exposed scene. Note I am still to master this technique, but read plenty about it.

For me, the last two have really good potential, you are off to a good start.

André

I like these.

Agree with the cropping suggestions although I dont mind the yellow in the first one though.

Steve

I like these...

Agree with Peter, there's too much emphasis on the sand in the foreground, and at this distance there's no real stand out subject in the sand. But the yellow works OK for me, I like it...

The second image yep, needs either an Grad ND, or merge a couple of exposures with two different EV levels, easy to do... Love the soft creamy water, works well, just the blown sky detracts

This one's suffering from the rocks too dark for details, maybe another case where either the Grad ND, or merging two exposures can really help...

The line of rocks seems to take me to the right and out of your last two images, maybe if you could find a spot where you could make just one or two rocks your foreground subject(s)? I really like the affect the long exposure has on the water flow too...

Thanks for all the comments guys - greatly appreciated.

Tristan, you're dead right. A grad ND would've made all the difference here. I've got some even nicer images IMO of the pool at Bronte, but they were taken just a little later and there was too much dynamic range between the sky and the detail around the pool which makes them suck.

stubbsy wrote:Please note - I'm not trying to sound too negative here since you have the makings of three good images. For me (and not necessarily for you) I just think they could be made a lot better.

Peter, not at all. That's why I post my images here. To learn. It's the suggestions for improvement from more experienced people like yourself that accelerate that process. I actually like hearing from people who don't like the shots and understanding what it is about those shots they don't like. I'm a big fan of honesty, whether the truth is ugly or pretty.

Speaking of learning, re the yellow in the first image. That was caused by the street lights which were pretty much the only source of illumination in this shot. It was very dark when I took this shot. When I play around with the WB, I get either a very yellow foreground, or a really weird sky and sea. Is there anything else I could have done, either at the time of exposure or in PP? I'll try cropping some of the foreground (say, from where the sea intersects the sand on the RHS) and some from the LHS (say, just to the left of the stairs) and see if that helps.

Andre and Andrew. Would either of you be able to give me simple instructions on how to merge two different exposures? It's waaayyy beyond my current level of PS expertise. Bear in mind, I'm still using PS6 too. I did take a few bracketed shots of some images, so I'd like to try this technique. Can you also tell me whether it's possible to do anything with merging multiple copies of the one image (ie. for those images where I haven't taken bracketed shots)? I might be able to rescue some of the pool shots if it's possible.

Finally, if anyone would like to play with these images, feel free to go right ahead. I'd just ask that you detail what you've done (as simply as possible) so that newbies like myself can learn from your experience.

Andrew

Re: the colours - if you want to change the sand and leave the rest of the image untouched use a colour adjustment layer in photoshop and paint the effect on only where there is sand. If you don't know what I mean get back and I'll post some details on the (very simple) technique.

stubbsy wrote: If you don't know what I mean get back and I'll post some details on the (very simple) technique.

Could you please Peter?

Here you go Andrew. In a thread of it's own in the Post Processing section.

Some beautiful shots here Andrew. Ditto Peter's comment and add -straighten horizon in last image a little and remove shadow of your tripod in the 2nd
cheers
marco

stubbsy wrote:Here you go Andrew. In a thread of it's own in the Post Processing section.

Thanks mate. Boy, does that make a difference.

I'll try this on the original image over the weekend if I get the time. I've got a busy few days ahead of me.

Does anyone want to explain the techique for merging two photos?