Downtown San Diego

dreamless

I'm curious what others think about this shot of downtown San Diego. This was taken from the balcony of my hotel room at the Sheraton.

JavaLover

dreamless wrote:

I'm curious what others think about this shot of downtown San Diego. This was taken from the balcony of my hotel room at the Sheraton.

Overall I like the feel and light. However, the trees in the foreground are very distracting. Maybe crop out most of them? I can appreciate having a little bit of them in there but they really dominate the photo. Or could you go up a few floors and get more of the marina with the sail boats?

Eia

The colors are really nice, espeically the sky. I think we stayed in the same room as you because during our trip I tried that side of the hotel too. The trees were in my way. Can you crop out the trees?

I finally went to the edge of the water to get the shot. http://eikon.smugmug.com/gallery/3632023_6jDxC#206927115_F4YD2

Can you get to the other side? There are no trees, a nice shot of the harbour but not the city. http://eikon.smugmug.com/gallery/3632023_6jDxC#283378383_SmoMY

dreamless

How about this cropped picture, is this any better? I'm not in San Diego right now, I was there the last week of July.



Thanks for your thoughts.

Eia

Personally...I think it is MUCH better! Loosing the 'stuff' at the bottom really brought it out alot more!

CWSkopec

Dreamless, the cropped version is much, MUCH better!! All you lost was the distracting, black mass of the trees and some parking lots. It puts the emphasis more on the city. I like the warmth of your photo. I tried taking some night shots across the bay this summer and I tended more towards a cooler overall tone, but after seeing this, I want to go back and reprocess them to see how they look warmer.

Nice work!!!

JavaLover

Very nice! Exactly what I was talking about.

dreamless

Thanks all, I appreciate your thoughts. I agree, cropping made a lot of difference and puts the focus back on the cityscape. I really liked the colors of the city most of the nights while I was in San Diego so I shot several pics each night and waited until I got home to see which ones would work. I think this one is nice, the city seems a little small but I do like the colors.

coscorrosa

I agree with the sentiments that the trees in the foreground were distracting (the cropped version is definitely improved). Even better would be if you could have made it down to the waterfront itself and captured some reflections of the buildings (it might not have been "legal" for you to do that if that's all private property on the waterfront, but why let the law get in the way of a good photo...) Also, the marina would also be an excellent subject close up.

One other thing, the colors are a little warm for my taste (it seems that night exposures of artificial lights are always too warm by default), I would try cooling the white balance down a little (either when you take the shot, or if you shoot in RAW, doing that in post-processing).