Critique Please! Night Fire Escape

eminart

Which of these two do you like more, and what would you change about them?

I'm considering this image to turn in for one of my projects in my digital photography class.

Obviously, the watermarks will not be there (I used a trial version, but I've decided to purchase Photomatix today).


Photo #1 here.

eminart

Photo #2 here.

eminart

Also, while we're on the subject.......... I had a lot of noise in this photo. I haven't really done much night photography in the year I've been in this hobby. I was shooting at ISO 400. I normally shoot at ISO 100, but my project is an HDR image, and I couldn't get the highlights at ISO 100, without going to BULB, which messes up the HDR conversion (because you're supposed to keep exact increments between stops when shooting HDR). Anyway, would the noise have been a lot better at 100? I had "long exposure NR" on. I also am not an expert at reducing noise in PP. Any tips on keeping the noise down, or if it's normal to have that much at ISO 400? The longest exposure of the HDR was 30 sec.

Richard

Of the two, I prefer the color version. Both could use a little more contrast, IMO, but the noise is even more apparent in the B&W. If you have Photoshop, you might want to use the perspective crop to straighten the right side a bit. As for the exposure issue, you'll get less noise with a lower ISO, but more noise with a longer exposure, so choose your poison. You might try using a noise reduction program, like Neat Image or Noise Ninja. PS also has noise reduction capabilities.

HTH.