san francisco by night

Andy · July 11, 2004

shot this on thursday evening, processed and created this today. this view is from treasure island in san francisco bay. that's about one-half of the bay bridge on the left.

ir-modified sony f828, xnitecc1 color correction filter aboard. 4 seconds @ f/3.2. in post, added the fog two clouds, and the moon.

i salvaged this shot from this, here's what it was like out of the camera (well, shot in raw and then converted with no adjustments). the big light you see are the lights of the san francisco giants baseball field, they were playing a night game.

there's more of my trip to san fran in this thread

enjoy (nightshot) photography,

rutt · August 3, 2004

The wide angle here is working in a way that it usually doesn't for me. The addition of the moon solves the composition problem.

I know SF very well and, well, it isn't a pink town. The hills are golden in the summer or green when it rains. The water is blue. The city itself is brightly colored. The city is almost never hot and when it is, it's dry. So as beautiful as pink is, I'd try a different color choice here. B&W is the obvious choice, but I think I'd like to see blue. SF is the ultimate "cool" city, at least for me. Why not capture this?

rutt · August 3, 2004

rutt wrote:

The wide angle here is working in a way that it usually doesn't for me. The addition of the moon solves the composition problem.

I know SF very well and, well, it isn't a pink town. The hills are golden in the summer or green when it rains. The water is blue. The city itself is brightly colored. The city is almost never hot and when it is, it's dry. So as beautiful as pink is, I'd try a different color choice here. B&W is the obvious choice, but I think I'd like to see blue. SF is the ultimate "cool" city, at least for me. Why not capture this?

Like this:

Or this:

The first is just the result of inverting both A and B curves in LAB. For the second, I flattened the A curve (who needs any green or magenta in this shot) and inverted the B curve, trading yellow for blue.

rutt · August 3, 2004

One more thought. When you lost the stadium lights, you also lost the lovely water surface and reflections of the city on the water in the foreground. I'd like to see that retained somehow. I think it would look better with the cool color cast.

Andy · August 3, 2004

thanks rutt ..
here's the first edit i did on this shot, the night i shot it three weeks ago

rutt · August 3, 2004

It's a beautiful composition and the moon adds a lot and I agree with muting the stadium lights. Maybe the fog could be a little more localized so the reflection of the city and water surface could still show.

I like the colors in my second LAB edit better than either the pink or B&W. I'd like those colors and the moon and just enough fog to lose the stadium lights and tone down their bright reflection on the water. What do you think?

Andy · August 3, 2004

rutt wrote:

It's a beautiful composition and the moon adds a lot and I agree with muting the stadium lights. Maybe the fog could be a little more localized so the reflection of the city and water surface could still show.

I like the colors in my second LAB edit better than either the pink or B&W. I'd like those colors and the moon and just enough fog to lose the stadium lights and tone down their bright reflection on the water. What do you think?

dunno. the pink is the way it was, that night. you can see it in the out of camera shot....

i'm going back in a week, i'll be shooting there again....

rutt · August 4, 2004

andy wrote:

dunno. the pink is the way it was, that night. you can see it in the out of camera shot....

That brings up a good question. Isn't this an IR shot? I don't really understand much about that, but do the colors actually look the same as they do to the human eye? Also, I find that shooting at night results in odd colors, often warmer than perceived by eye. So does what comes out of the camera represent some sort of truth here beyond merely technical?

Andy · August 4, 2004

nope

rutt wrote:

That brings up a good question. Isn't this an IR shot? I don't really understand much about that, but do the colors actually look the same as they do to the human eye? Also, I find that shooting at night results in odd colors, often warmer than perceived by eye. So does what comes out of the camera represent some sort of truth here beyond merely technical?

it is not an ir shot. it's normal color photography....

DoctorIt · August 4, 2004

i gotta say, i really like the more "untouched" shot better. maybe that stadium blows out, but the reflection (as rutt noted) is rather a nice effect across the water. Dunno, maybe there's just too much fog there for me... seems like half the frame is just pink fog.

rutt · August 4, 2004

andy wrote:

it is not an ir shot. it's normal color photography....

So I've been thinking about this and I realize I have a question. Does your camera have a WB setting for "night"? Does the raw conversion have this?
I'm guessing not and that you made a decision at some level about the color temperature of this shot. So what are the "real" colors? Can we find out?
Or do we get to choose, either during the raw conversion or afterward?

Andy · August 4, 2004

rutt wrote:

So I've been thinking about this and I realize I have a question. Does your camera have a WB setting for "night"? Does the raw conversion have this?
I'm guessing not and that you made a decision at some level about the color temperature of this shot. So what are the "real" colors? Can we find out?
Or do we get to choose, either during the raw conversion or afterward?

this was the color of the night, i'm trying to tell you this

and yeah, the 828 has wb settings, of course. and this was shot in raw, and converted in ps cs.

rutt · August 4, 2004

andy wrote:

this was the color of the night, i'm trying to tell you this and yeah, the 828 has wb settings, of course. and this was shot in raw, and converted in ps cs.

This was actually a technical not artistic question. Is there a "night" setting for the ps/cs conversion thing for this camera? There isn't one for the canon camras I've used. So what exactly did you do when you made the conversion? Is there a way to know it is right (like a white/black card)? I'm interested in how true night shot colors can be and whetehr there is an objective way to find out. I think you do a lot of night shooting and I'm just starting to. I often end up with surprising colors.

Andy · August 4, 2004

rutt wrote:

This was actually a technical not artistic question. Is there a "night" setting for the ps/cs conversion thing for this camera? There isn't one for the canon camras I've used. So what exactly did you do when you made the conversion? Is there a way to know it is right (like a white/black card)? I'm interested in how true night shot colors can be and whetehr there is an objective way to find out. I think you do a lot of night shooting and I'm just starting to. I often end up with surprising colors.

i will usually set the in-camera wb to "cloudy" for a touch of warmth. there's no "nightshot setting" button, to answer your question.... but again, you *can* alter in the raw conversion, and get any color temp you want. this shot is as close to the color as i remember it from that night.

here's my brief tutorial on night shot post processing...

san francisco by night

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