Venetian ceiling at Vegas

ridgemac

Request comments - how could I have taken a better picture - recommended settings please. Thanks!

ridgemac

Sorry - didn't post pict correctly
Sorry - didn't post the pict correctly

schmoo

I fixed the link for you. Better?

PhotoLasVegas

ahh, a location close to our hearts

Ok first the hallway/ceiling is long, so shoot in portrait orientation. Your white balance is a bit off, but not bad - that room is really yellow-gold anyway.

Second, for something like this IMO you need to be exactly perfectly centered and the photo needs to be perfectly balanced.

As for settings, that's tougher - just expose correctly - and the challenge is needed to stop down the lens to get the entire shot in focus, so you'll have to shoot tripod with very slow shutter, or possibly handheld with high ISO (noise, though!). It's a beautiful ceiling so it doesn't take much to make a good photo of it. I've always wanted to shoot an HDR of it, but too busy!

travischance

I just returned from Vegas last week & walked across the street to shoot the Venetian. As for your shot, a tripod (or some type of support is a must). I suggest shooting with an ISO of 100 at f8 or f11 which should yield about a 3-5 second exposure. For example, I shot the Shops at Caesars in Manual Mode, manual focus @ ISO 100, f11 for 3.2 seconds. Like PhotoLasVegas stated, stopping down your lens will allow more of your frame to be in focus (f8, f11 or f16). I have a shot of the ceiling at Caesars but I haven't completed PP...

If you don't have a tripod, try using your lens hood to prop the camera up a bit. Activate your self timer & you should be good to go from there! I hope this helps.

The_Fat_Zebra

On the image you posted I would also play with curves to strengthen the contrast, it all looks rather flattish to me.

bendruckerphoto

I went over to your site and grabbed the EXIF data so everyone has that to base their critiques off of:

Nikon D80
1/5s
f/5.6
ISO 400

Everyone else pretty much hit it on the head with what you needed to do here. Just to summarize:

• Use a tripod
• Use a small aperture (f/11 to f/16)
• Use your base ISO (200)
• Shoot RAW so that you can fix the white balance
• Shoot vertical to capture depth

CatOne

It's not sharp. It could use a faster shutter speed.

bendruckerphoto

CatOne wrote: »

It's not sharp. It could use a faster shutter speed.

It could use a tripod. It's actually pretty sharp. But since it was shot at such a wide aperture, the edges are quite soft. But increasing the shutter speed wouldn't help. That would just require a corresponding increase in ISO or aperture size. The OP ideally needs to lower both, so that would just make one thing better by worsening others.

jpc

This is all good advice. A few other things to consider...

First of all, this picture is NOT sharp. When you shoot on a tripod and decrease your aperture and ISO, you'll see what sharp looks like. Second, don't point your camera up. Keep it level. If you can't get everything in the shot, back up, find a different vantage point, or use a wider lens. Also, the wider your focal length is, the slower your shutter speed needs to be to get a sharp shot.

travischance

I personally don't think there is anything wrong with shooting up, as long as the photo is sharp. There are times when there isn't another other vantage point and/or your equipment limits how wide you can go. At the end of the day, its more important to have a sharp photo vs. no photo at all. . .

jpc

At the end of the day, it might be better to have ANY photo than no photo at all, if all you're interested in is capturing a moment. Obviously, we have to operate within the limits of our equipment and environment, but as PhotoLasVegas pointed out, even using a portrait orientation would have helped your shot, and the result would have been that your camera probably would have been closer to level.

Edit: Travis, I was directing my reply to the OP. The shot you posted looks great as landscape, and is indeed level

Cowspoo

Also, I think moving more towards the center of the room for some symmetry would add another touch to it.

travischance

jpc wrote: »

At the end of the day, it might be better to have ANY photo than no photo at all, if all you're interested in is capturing a moment. Obviously, we have to operate within the limits of our equipment and environment, but as PhotoLasVegas pointed out, even using a portrait orientation would have helped your shot, and the result would have been that your camera probably would have been closer to level.

Edit: Travis, I was directing my reply to the OP. The shot you posted looks great as landscape, and is indeed level

I figured as much!

BradfordBenn

I would also be careful with framing out the lights on the columns. If you want them in your picture, they just have to be compensated for. If you just want the ceiling itself, keeping the columns and the lights at the top of them out will help with the exposure settings.

PhotoLasVegas

Not to hi-jack or divert attention but this thread inspired me to head to the strip and get my own version of this shot...

http://dgrin.com/showthread.php?p=1399700#post1399700

rpcrowe

Playing with your image:
I agree that shooting it properly from the get-go is the best way but, the image is savable... If you have the original in RAW, a lot can be done with it. However, even with the JPEG copy off this site, there can be some improvements.

Using Photoshop CS3 I did the following:

1. adjusted perspective
2. cropped
3. increased sharpness with unsharp mask
4. reduced yellow cast a bit
5. increased contrast
6. increased brightness a tad

How does it look?