Mountain Night Photo

Tharhawk

Okay, I've had lots of trouble with the Nikon D200 and night photography, but I keep on trying. In this case, high on one of Mount Rainiers more remote routes, in the wind, freezing my fingers off, I tried a photo of camp. Any ideas? The edit was very quick and I'd be the first to admit I don't always know what I'm doing. In fact, I could put the original up on smugmug and if someone would like, I'd love to see what editing could do? The original is up there now, but with my edit, so that may affect, I don't know.

Anyhow, Thanks.

kdog

Tent is too centered and too bright for my taste. I'd start cropping from the upper left, down and to the right, such that the tent is located approximately at the rule-of-thirds intersection on the lower right. If you do that, all you've cropped away is featureless rock and dirt. That also allows expands and draws your eye more to the city lights and sky features. You could then mask off the tent and drop the brightness on it, although that's more of a bandaid. Next time, perhaps you can illuminate the tent for only a portion of the exposure to balance its light better. Kinda like light painting.

Candid Arts

I actually like the featureless rock on the right side. But yes, tent is way to centered and to fix this shot, the previous advice is going to be best. I would have like to see the camera moved more towards the featureless rock side and angles more towards the left so that the tent was in the bottom right, but still got that featureless rock on one side, contrasted but the star lit detailed night on the other side. Again, yes the tent is too bright, I like how it's lit up, but just a bit too much.

That's about all I got for right now.

Tharhawk

There's much that could be improved, starting with carrying a tripod, but I'd already carried the camera over ten thousand feet up. Ha. The original doesn't have the tent so bright and I do see what you guys mean. Thanks for the advice.