Old York Minute

luke_church

Lying here in the darkness
I hear the sirens wail
Somebody's going to an emergency
Somebody's going to jail
If you find somebody to love in this world
You better hang on tooth and nail
The wolf is always at the door

(New York Minute, The Eagles)

Photo Taken: York, United Kingdom, April 2006

Comments and suggestions are always welcome.

Have a nice day,

Luke

Andy

luke_church wrote:

Old York Minute

saurora

Thanks, Luke. This shot made my morning! Love the composition and the lyrics, of course! (Hey, isn't that the Hotel California in the background???? )

TristanP

Technically, that's a Don Henley song, but it's still really good. Nice pic.

bfrantz

Hey, that's an awesome pic. I'm new to slr photography, so this may be a question with an obvious answer, but did you use an ND filter? If so, how dark was it? In other words, was it a .4, .6, .8...? I'm planning to get one and am wondering what a good all-around level of light reduction is. Thanks!

luke_church

Andy wrote:

Cheers Andy Glad you liked it

luke_church

saurora wrote:

Thanks, Luke. This shot made my morning! Love the composition and the lyrics, of course! (Hey, isn't that the Hotel California in the background???? )

Hi Sauroa,

The composition is helped by the nature of the city. There aren't many other cities that I know of that have 'castle style' walls that look down into such a flat city as York.

Really glad you liked the shot.

Luke

luke_church

TristanP wrote:

Technically, that's a Don Henley song, but it's still really good. Nice pic.

Thanks for that. I didn't know that the Eagles were doing a cover. :

Luke

luke_church

bfrantz wrote:

Hey, that's an awesome pic. I'm new to slr photography, so this may be a question with an obvious answer, but did you use an ND filter? If so, how dark was it? In other words, was it a .4, .6, .8...? I'm planning to get one and am wondering what a good all-around level of light reduction is. Thanks!

No, trouble, and perhaps the answer isn't as obvious as you might think :-)

No, I didn't use a ND filter, I didn't see the need (though I was carrying one for a different lens).

Camera was set to ISO 100, with the Canon 70-200mm L f4 lens, set at f32, and an exposure of 10 seconds. Focal length of 70mm.

Taken using an IR remote control and mirror lock-up to solve the mirror-slap problem.

There wasn't really too much need for an ND filter, and for this kind of thing, they're not all that necessary anyhow, as they can generally be faked out in software. A ND filter is only really the same as averaging multiple sets of images together (because of the integrator nature of sensors this is close to their behaviour).

Actually averaging images will generally give you a better image than using a ND filter as you also get a noise reducing effect. I think I have some software I once wrote to do this kicking around somewhere. But unfortunately it won't talk RAW.

The only disadvantage of using a 'software ND filter' is that you get an intergration gap between the exposures, this is a real pain if you have a camera that you can't turn long-exposure NR off on (such as the Sony F828) as it can lead to gaps in the images. But for an SLR you should be fine.

It really depends on how long exposures you want to take. If you want to take long exposures in bright light, then an NR is probably going to be in order and you'll want something fairly strong, but stop your lens down first, you'll generally get better quality and cheaper that way. And certainly invest in a remote control, that really helps.

Hope this helps, if you have any more questions or want other examples, just holler :

Luke

bfrantz

Wow, thanks a bunch for that detailed answer, Luke! Much appreciated.

Brian