Well here is my first post with nw dslr, was having hell learning how to use it at first but I'm slowly getting in there.

Was gonna shoot the county rodeo arena, to work on my low lights, and i got down low on my mini tripod, got off one or two, then I'll be damned if Johnny Law dont make showing. anyhow here are the few i got before I had to jump a fence and run from the man!

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Feel Free to throw some constructive criticism my way. Like I've said, I love to hear any opinions and advice. I know a couple archway shots were about the same, but i was trying to find the right shutter delay to go from black a good shot of color. And I think I accidently put a macro of my daughter's ladybug some where. Oh and a bunkass couple of laser shots. I'm trying to figure out how to use light (or laser) painting to shoot a darkwall with my kids names laser painted on the darkness so i cant print them out to hang in their bedrooms. Don't be too violent on me....lol whatever there ya go

Honestly I think 7. was my fave and right when I start to figure my settings, a popo tahoe pulled in. Had to hide till he walked around then I think i sat a record droppin my tripod and hooking it my backpack and loading my cam, then bailing over a fence in a single bound. Somehow got to my truck and slid out. Drove by him with a smile on my face. I was hoping to get into the shoots to give y'all a cowboys perspective before getting on the bull or that rank ass bronc. Anyhow enjoy folks, I have an old abandoned two-story home, with a supposed haunted background I'm going to explore tomorrow noches. Have a good one. This night-owl is hitting the sack

Ok..

Bonus points for getting out there and experimenting.. But minus a couple points trying to experiment & learn at a place where you can get busted.

Gotta be a couple public places in your town where you can shoot at night.. take your time.. perfect your craft.. If a cop rolls up on you there you can shot him what you are doing... bs around for a bit.. & the chances of getting let go if he catches you on a explore are just a tiny bit better...maybe..

Looks like you learned a few valuable lessons..

First, the onboard flash isn't worth much past 10-15 feet..

Second, in image #2 you got a good example of flash falloff. What that means is.. every time you double the distance to your subject the amount of light from the flash that hits it is reduced by 3/4 . That is why your subject might be lit ok.. but the stuff behind it quickly looses light.

Third, #7, it's a bit over exposed.. but not too badly... Are you saving your images as NEF or JPG? Not sure if the 3100 can do both at the same time or not. If not, save as NEF.. Detail wise, they are similar in high quality modes. But, with NEF, you get a lot more information to play with.. Not only exposure but color also.. The upside of that is also a downside... it means you will spend more time playing with each image.. The work is worth it though...

Color correction can be a really big deal at night.. You will find subjects lit by different types of light sources... Different temperature incandescent, Different types of florescent, xenon, sodium vapor ( the worst! ), metal halide. etc etc. Having the raw data from the sensor will help a lot to improve bad / mixed lighting situations..

I assume that composition wasn't the goal on this shoot.. So, I'll leave that be..

Needless to say.. but you need a taller tripod. Also, are you using the self timer when doing long exposures?

As far as the laser painting goes.. Looks like you need to open the lens iris ( F-stop ) up quite a bit. 2-3+ stops... Give that a try and show us how it turned out...

Good luck & good shooting..

alright man i appreciate the advice and will try everything you suggested. Thanks bud.

And the winner for longest most unnecessary forum thread title goes to...

The grammatical errors really make it bro, so nice.

However you're resizing your photos is resulting in diagonal lines turning into jagged teeth, especially in photos 2 and 6. If you use a program like Photoshop or Picasa to resize them for posting online, that won't happen.