* Challenge 21 - Night shots

pathfinder

I finally got free for a little while last night to shoot some more shots after sundown. I decided to start with the George Rogers Clark National Historic Park

http://www.statelib.lib.in.us/www/ihb/resources/archgrc.html

http://www.nationalparks.com/george_rogers_clark_national_historical_park.htm

http://www.nps.gov/gero/


In a brief review of several web pages I did not find any pictures of the monument after dark - kind of interesting. I started during twilight after the sun was down and stayed until darkness when I ended up with star trails in my pictures. All shots were from a tripod.

Here is one of the first images right after sunset



Here is a little later when the sky has darkened but stars are not really noticeable yet.


And here is a view with star trails in the sky if you look carefully as this was a 30sec exposure - easily enough to document star trails.



Of course I have a nice platinum style B&W as well



I will appreciate all comments and criticisms and suggestions for improvement. I will try to implement some of the suggestions and upload them back here for comparison to the originals.

lynnma

pathfinder wrote:

I finally got free for a little while last night to shoot some more shots after sundown. I decided to start with the George Rogers Clark National Historic Park

http://www.statelib.lib.in.us/www/ihb/resources/archgrc.html

http://www.nationalparks.com/george_rogers_clark_national_historical_park.htm

http://www.nps.gov/gero/


In a brief review of several web pages I did not find any pictures of the monument after dark - kind of interesting. I started during twilight after the sun was down and stayed until darkness when I ended up with star trails in my pictures. All shots were from a tripod.

Here is one of the first images right after sunset



Here is a little later when the sky has darkened but stars are not really noticeable yet.


And here is a view with star trails in the sky if you look carefully as this was a 30sec exposure - easily enough to document star trails.



Of course I have a nice platinum style B&W as well



I will appreciate all comments and criticisms and suggestions for improvement. I will try to implement some of the suggestions and upload them back here for comparison to the originals.

Well Path.. IMHO they are spectacular. I think the last one (silver) would have been great but the others outshine it so. I love the second to last with the stars out and I love the first two as well.. It would be hard for me to pick but I think I would end up with number two.. I wish it were a tad (only a tad) brighter, no maybe not.. anyway, great shots every one. If there are improvements to be had I'm not the one to see them.
Lynn

DavidTO

I like the first and last.

First is electric, intense.

The last is timeless.

tmlphoto

DavidTO wrote:

I like the first and last.

First is electric, intense.

The last is timeless.

I agree with David. The only nit I have is the star flare from the light on the right side of the first pic. I think I would prefer it cropped or less intense somehow.

GREAPER

I really like 1, 3 and 4. 2 is a little dark for me.

pathfinder

tmlphoto wrote:

I agree with David. The only nit I have is the star flare from the light on the right side of the first pic. I think I would prefer it cropped or less intense somehow.

The early twilight shot seems to garner the most interest despite the light highlight to the right of the image. I agree that it is too bright, but it is almost an integral part of the image - some of the light on the monument comes from it, so I have tried three different ways of dealing with it since I can't reshoot it tonight.

First, I just cloned out the bright light and cloned in the light from the second image I posted - I just moved it over after cloning out the lights in the original shot and transformed the light from image #2. It looks ok at 800 pixels, but not so great as a 13x19 print I suspect.



Next try was just to burn in the highlights of the light and try to darken it up enough that it was less distracting

I think this is the best alternative.

Lastly I tried simply cropping it out altogether - but I think this is a less acceptable image to my eye... The light from the right with an out of image source just does not seem to work...


These three images were all processed again from the original RAW file which I color corrected with the eyedropper and used the Luminanace Smoothing and Color Noise reduction sliders at 60 to reduce the noise in the original images I posted. Noise reduction was turned off in my 1DMkll which probably was a mistake in retrospect s these were all 30 second exposures at ISO 200.


I also created the twilight image with the light burned in as a B&W platinum print




After leaving the monument I passed a church on the way out of Vincennes and saw this window begging to be photographed...



And I looked behind me as Andy taught us to see what else was available to shoot and found this as well....


All in all I think I favor the twilight image of the monument with the light just burned in enough to dim it some - altho I do like it is B&W as well.

GREAPER

I think that window is pretty cool too.

ginger_55

I kept thinking that monument looked familiar. For some reason I always disliked it intensely. (I like the black and white photo in your last batch best)

I did like sitting on the lawn below it, still high, overlooking the river and watching fireworks on the fourth of July, after a parade, small town, earlier in the day. That is one of my fonder memories as a family and as a mother of four. That was the best place for fireworks we ever had. We lived there five years. The younger children sat with us, while my older children, in their teens, went off with their friends, but we would all check in together periodically. Great family town.

Now that monument, I don't know why, but I really did not like it.

ginger

Three Catholic Cathedrals in that then town of 20,000, when I lived there in the seventies. Even if you told me which one, I don't remember their names, though that is where I became a Catholic. A lot of money in that small town to support three cathedrals.

pathfinder

ginger_55 wrote:

I (I like the black and white photo in your last batch best)
ginger

Three Catholic Cathedrals in that then town of 20,000, when I lived there in the seventies. Even if you told me which one, I don't remember their names, though that is where I became a Catholic. A lot of money in that small town to support three cathedrals.

Vincennes and Terre Haute are originally French settled towns - check out the names - Vincennes - Terre Haute ... French! And you are right, Ginger they both have large Catholic communities - I have posted pictures of two large Catholic churches here from time to time.

Now in southern Indiana in towns like Darmstadt and Haubstadt there are a lot fewer Catholics - I suspect because of Martin Luther and the Reformation. History in Action so to speak.:slurp
German beer is chemical free!!

I am glad you liked the B&W one - I like good B&W too. We'll see what Rutt has to say tomorrow maybe. He always likes the color image.

pathfinder

GREAPER wrote:

I really like 1, 3 and 4. 2 is a little dark for me.

Just for you, Greaper, here is #2 lightened - Actually I went back to the RAW file and reopened it using the eyedropper to neutralize the yellow-green cast from the lights on the monument - flourescent? - and to smooth out the color noise in the image. I then increased the exposure and brightness before I brought it into PS where I gave it some curves and cropped slightly. You can now see a few star trails in this image also.



Is this better or worse than the first version I posted of this - image #2?

PerezDesignGroup

I also like the first and last the most. The colors in the first one are striking and I feel the image is Travel Guide worthy on it's own. As far as removing the light source...I like it removed and it doesn't bother me so much since the light source could, in fact, be off camera.

The last one is classic. It could easily fly as a postcard. You're BW conversion is very well done.

As far as your last post, the colors are definitely better but it's a bit noisy on my view.

lynnesite

PerezDesignGroup wrote:

I also like the first and last the most. The colors in the first one are striking and I feel the image is Travel Guide worthy on it's own. As far as removing the light source...I like it removed and it doesn't bother me so much since the light source could, in fact, be off camera.

The last one is classic. It could easily fly as a postcard. You're BW conversion is very well done.

As far as your last post, the colors are definitely better but it's a bit noisy on my view.

I agree point for point.

pathfinder

lynnesite wrote:

I agree point for point.

SO.... tonight I drove back down to Vincennes to try and see if I could improve on my previous images. I was not encouraged as the sky was cloudless. There were numerous people wandering aroung the historic park practicing a wedding rehersal. And the sun was dipping below the horizon. I think my first set of images were technically ok, but did not have the hook that grabs the viewers eye a 2nd time. So I thought I'd try to add that hook tonight.
I found lovely reflections this evening


But I was not after reflections for this challenge

How about a different view - a new vantage point - say from Col Vigo's vantage point..... ( I live in VIGO county - hint hint )



So I go back up the hillock and there are these two fellows sitting on the front abuttement - the image looks bright but there are stars captured in the sky behind them ISO 800 f8 8 seconds


But I still am not there yet .... But maybe a sepia tone will do it for me.....



Still not there yet - how bout a nice moonlit scene tho


I think that will be it:D

snapapple

This is great with the addition of the two guys - the hook. The moon wasn't really there? The moon is not full tonight. But it does add something. Good idea. I still like that B&W one though. The look is just perfect. You said "platinum"? Would you explain how you did that? I really like it.

pathfinder

snapapple wrote:

This is great with the addition of the two guys - the hook. The moon wasn't really there? The moon is not full tonight. But it does add something. Good idea. I still like that B&W one though. The look is just perfect. You said "platinum"? Would you explain how you did that? I really like it.

This is NOT a composite - the moon is a blown out highlihgt from the new moon. It is because the exposure was SO LONG to get the details in the monument and the foreground. This was black last night - the lights on the monument look bright, but they are not perceptible until it is dark - they were not visible at all in twilight. So the moon got blown out - I have not had time to composite a corrct moon in. I like the platinum B&W and the sepia also - but this is my entry for now.

wxwax

Just to mess your head up a bit... I really, really like the Vigo statue shot from behind. Lovely B&W and it tells a story. Very nice exposure.

pathfinder

wxwax wrote:

Just to mess your head up a bit... I really, really like the Vigo statue shot from behind. Lovely B&W and it tells a story. Very nice exposure.

Thanks waxy - It has been difficult, choosing the image for the challenge is slightly different than choosing my favorite for sure. I like this image a lot, but I thought it might not be as universal in its appeal. I will consider this image again.

snapapple

I like your choice for the challenge. Some of the others may be better in terms of selling your pictures or printing them in books or postcards. But, the hard part of taking pictures of famous buildings or monuments (as Andy has said) is getting a little different perspective - something unique. I liked your first choice too. I certainly didn't mean anything negative by my comment on the moon. I thought it was great. And, the guys sitting there gave it that little something unique. You had so many terrific pictures to chose from. A tough choice, but I think you picked one with "that something special". Good luck in the challenge.
...BTW you've got my vote.

GREAPER

I like the reworked version better than the first one that I thought was too dark. The colors are better and the detail in the monument are very good. I dont know what causes it but there seems to be some sort of noise right around the edges of the monument,, like heat waves or something. Is this some digital artifact from brightening the image?




This bridge is a beautiful shot. Sharp and clear, the reflection is nice, the colors look great.




I like this image very much. Love the depth of feild and the composition. I think this may be my favorite. The statue in the forground is fantastic

pathfinder

GREAPER wrote:

I like the reworked version better than the first one that I thought was too dark. The colors are better and the detail in the monument are very good. I dont know what causes it but there seems to be some sort of noise right around the edges of the monument,, like heat waves or something. Is this some digital artifact from brightening the image?




This bridge is a beautiful shot. Sharp and clear, the reflection is nice, the colors look great.




I like this image very much. Love the depth of feild and the composition. I think this may be my favorite. The statue in the forground is fantastic

I saw that too Greaper and I think I know what is going on. I saw a post today - I'm trying to find it - from Baldy that smugmug sharpens your images AFTER you have uploaded them because they assume us amateurs do not sharpen stuff in PhotoSHop for some reason. SO I think what we are seeing at the edges of the roof of the monument is oversharpening. I assure you I do not see those changes on my .psd files when I open them in PhotoShop on my desktop box.

http://www.dgrin.com/showthread.php?t=2719 Here is the thread I am talking about. I did not know Smugmug sharpened our images AFTER we upload them - Interesting stuuf in this thread.

Actually Greaper, when I compare the Col Vigo image above, which is the one I submitted for the challenge, with the jpg files I have on my hard drive for uploading to smugmug, I can see the increased sharpening on the image on smugmug also. I have started converting my .psd's which are in Adobe color space to jpgs and them convert the jpgs to sRGB space before uploading to smugmug to help keep the colors stable as well. Hmmm....

Maybe I need to upgrade my smugmug account to an intermediate level - Baldy would probably prefer that anyway

GREAPER

I agree, that is what we are seeing, Andy commented in the same thread that he has had issues with the same effect.

If I understand Onethumbs last post to that thread, the level of your account does not currently give you the option of turning it off.

We will see what they do with it. You dont see the effects in every shot and to be honest, most of the examples they showed I (with my bad eyesight) cannot see much if any difference between them.

But I would not be happy with that "halo" effect in my shots either.


It looks like I am not the only one that thought the statue shot was a great one.