Christmas on the Riverwalk

redleash

Went to the Riverwalk with a friend on Mon night to shoot some pics of the Christmas lights. Here are a few. I definitely don't have the hang of shooting lights at night, but I thought a couple of them turned out nicely.

#1. Reflections of lights on the San Antonio River


#2. Looking up river from one of the bridges; doesn't look too crowded on the walk but the restaurants were packed!


#3. The Alamo at night; good on screen but it printed way too dark so I'm open to suggestions

rwells

redleash wrote:

Went to the Riverwalk with a friend on Mon night to shoot some pics of the Christmas lights. Here are a few. I definitely don't have the hang of shooting lights at night, but I thought a couple of them turned out nicely.

#1. Reflections of lights on the San Antonio River

#2. Looking up river from one of the bridges; doesn't look too crowded on the walk but the restaurants were packed!

#3. The Alamo at night; good on screen but it printed way too dark so I'm open to suggestions

Guess I don't understand... They look good to me

Shootin1st

Love the colors in the reflections.

redleash

Thanks. I posted the best ones! I have a few others I hoped would look good but there was too much reflection and/or blurriness--thus the reason for my caveat. I did think the ones I posted here were nice.

Glad you liked 'em.

jstpeter

You are correct these did turn out nicely.
#1 makes for a very good abstract.
Maybe just a tad too long of a shutter speed on #2.
The river walk is hard becasue of all the other artificial light drowning out the Christmas lights. I think Christmas lights look best when there is just a few other lights that highlight the scene. If you have seen my work you know what my solution would have been, bracket the scene with three exposures

#3 looks to be you best night time exposure. You can see that in this shot how less light in a scene can make for a more dramatic night shots.

oh and by the way as a Texan I am probably biased towards any Alamo shot!

Travis

jstpeter wrote:

You are correct these did turn out nicely.
#1 makes for a very good abstract.
Maybe just a tad too long of a shutter speed on #2.
The river walk is hard becasue of all the other artificial light drowning out the Christmas lights. I think Christmas lights look best when there is just a few other lights that highlight the scene. If you have seen my work you know what my solution would have been, bracket the scene with three exposures

#3 looks to be you best night time exposure. You can see that in this shot how less light in a scene can make for a more dramatic night shots.

oh and by the way as a Texan I am probably biased towards any Alamo shot!

except for being a Texan part. Maybe a shorter exposure in the second shot would tone down the background clutter a little and emphasize the lights. Also on # 2, color of the sky is turned light gray due to the ambience of the city lights on the long exposure. If you darken it in post, it would look nightish if that makes sense. I love 1 and 3 the way they are. Colorful abstracts are always interesting and the shot of the Alamo is very moody!

Skippy

redleash wrote:

Went to the Riverwalk with a friend on Mon night to shoot some pics of the Christmas lights.

Here are a few.

I definitely don't have the hang of shooting lights at night,
but I thought a couple of them turned out nicely.

#1. Reflections of lights on the San Antonio River

#2. Looking up river from one of the bridges; doesn't look too crowded on the walk but the restaurants were packed!

#3. The Alamo at night; good on screen but it printed way too dark so I'm open to suggestions

You did very well Lauren

I've actually been there, and walked along that area where you took the Second shot, but not at night.

As was suggested by others who have replied to your post,
try bracketing and see how you go.

I love the colours, the area would make for some great HDR's

Nice work Lauren.... Skippy
.

NoahDL88

"#3. The Alamo at night; good on screen but it printed way too dark so I'm open to suggestions"


Check your monitor settings. On my CRT monitor i couldn't even see your watermark, on my LCD it was quite obvious. both of mine have not been calibrated either.

Panther

Howdy Lauren,

Beautiful colors, I really like them all, night shots are something I've not had much success with.

The first one with the abstract colors is very pleasing, and I like the views along the River.

Of Course, the Last one always has a special place in my Heart.

Merry Christmas!!!

dlplumer

I have to take a trip to San Antonio. Nice shots Lauren.

redleash

Thanks, everyone! I went back to the Riverwalk tonight with my husband. Have not looked at shots yet but will post any good ones. I hope to go back again this week to try some multiple exposures and do some HDR processing. The place was just way too busy tonight to do much of anything except grabbing a few shots sort of on the fly.

Dan--and anyone else: Come to San Antonio anytime. Will be glad to show you around. I'd love to get a Dgrin shoot together here!