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UER Forum > Archived UE Photo Critiques > night shots - half abandoned iron foundry (Viewed 422 times)
Slyv 


Location: Belgium, kingdom of UE
Gender: Male




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night shots - half abandoned iron foundry
< on 1/11/2006 11:51 PM >
Posted on Forum: UER Forum
 
Tried to take some pics at night. This was an abandoned part of a huge active foundry.
Maybe they are too orange? Maybe underexposed? Maybe grainy? Waiting for your comments!
1
50564.jpg (31 kb, 700x441)
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2
50565.jpg (57 kb, 1000x313)
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3
50566.jpg (58 kb, 700x525)
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4
50567.jpg (59 kb, 700x525)
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5
50568.jpg (91 kb, 700x525)
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6
50569.jpg (92 kb, 525x700)
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desmet 




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Re: night shots - half abandoned iron foundry
<Reply # 1 on 1/12/2006 12:05 AM >
Posted on Forum: UER Forum
 
Before I begin, there are a couple things with all these shots. First, every one of them would be better at a lower ISO setting. Did you hand-hold these, or shoot on a tripod? If you're on a tripod, put the ISO setting at it's lowest! No reason to look for speed when you're on a tripod. Second, Noiseware or some similar plugin would fix all of these shots. There's too much noise, and it detracts from some really great photos.

#1 - I like, but you MUST clone out those hot pixels. They are distracting. There's too much black in this as well...I would love it if you had shot one shot for the sky and the other for the shadows and layer-masked in shadow detail. That said, the silhouette is just so fucking cool, and the color of the sky is too.

#2 - Fantastic! Again, more shadow detail would be great, but it's not as necessary on this one. Maybe a little dodging or a lighter layer layer-masked in in the shadows would make it better, but who cares. You really need to fix the noise and hot pixels though because they mess up an otherwise really great shot. I love this!!!

#3 - This one is so fantastic I just want to jump out the window. I love this. The same problems apply: WAY too much noise, could have more shadow detail, hot pixels must go. I would also clone out the lens flare. The composition is just so great though! I love this picture to death, I really do, and I can live with everything except the noise. Really fantastic shot. My favorite.

#4 - I would crop this differently to give it some more focus.

#5 - Great shot, but fix the vertical orientation and clone/crop out the people. the silhouette in front of the lights is just great!

#6 - This is my second favorite shot. The composition is awesome and there aren't many technical problems. However, the people must go! They distract from such a great architectural/abstract shot. I can't say enough about the composition of this, but the people are just no good. Awesome photo either way.

Mr. X 


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Re: night shots - half abandoned iron foundry
<Reply # 2 on 1/12/2006 1:48 AM >
Posted on Forum: UER Forum
 
Posted by desmet
#1 - I like, but you MUST clone out those hot pixels. They are distracting.

Them be stars, me thinks.



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desmet 




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Re: night shots - half abandoned iron foundry
<Reply # 3 on 1/12/2006 2:37 AM >
Posted on Forum: UER Forum
 
Posted by Mr. X

Them be stars, me thinks.





Could be, but the color is off on them either way...I'm just referring to the two on the left. Clone em!

Mr. X 


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Re: night shots - half abandoned iron foundry
<Reply # 4 on 1/12/2006 2:56 AM >
Posted on Forum: UER Forum
 
Posted by desmet
Could be, but the color is off on them either way...

Posted by desmet
That said, the silhouette is just so fucking cool, and the color of the sky is too.

Well, which is it? Is the color fucking cool or is it off?

If Slyv cropped the first shot so the brightest star wasn't in the frame then the celestial presence would be less distracting.

I agree though, the one thing that would help these photos is some noise reduction. There's plenty of plugins or separate software solutions to this pesky pixelated problem.

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desmet 




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Re: night shots - half abandoned iron foundry
<Reply # 5 on 1/12/2006 3:08 AM >
Posted on Forum: UER Forum
 
Posted by Mr. X


Well, which is it? Is the color fucking cool or is it off?

If Slyv cropped the first shot so the brightest star wasn't in the frame then the celestial presence would be less distracting.


I didn't say crop, I said clone. =)

All I'm saying is to clone out the hot pixel/off color star. The framing for the sky is fine, the color on the sky is fine, there's just two purple "stars" that are distracting and stand out too much. You could probably even leave the bottom one...the top one is purple though!
[last edit 1/12/2006 3:10 AM by desmet - edited 1 times]

Noah Vale 


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Re: night shots - half abandoned iron foundry
<Reply # 6 on 1/12/2006 3:37 AM >
Posted on Forum: UER Forum
 
Just cause they are purple doesn't mean they aren't stars. I think most stars are not simply white, as we see them, but are indeed colored. Reason being that in the dark of night, we are using our rods instead of our cones, which are pisspoor for color rendition. The techmology of film bypasses this biological annoyance and we see stars as the color they really are in the print.

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Slyv 


Location: Belgium, kingdom of UE
Gender: Male




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Re: night shots - half abandoned iron foundry
<Reply # 7 on 1/12/2006 2:29 PM >
Posted on Forum: UER Forum
 
Thanks for the long coments desmet!
Actually, these hot pixels were stars. They are really distracting on #1, I agree! Will remove them to build a better shot.

So what's the point of having a high ISO settings on a digital camera? Did not play a lot with the iso settings, but will do on my next expedition for sure. I'm always working with a tripod, so exposure time does not really matters.

Some of these pics were already noise-filtered, but I guess my camera is not good for nightshots.
Anyway, got a new one, will post soon some more nightshots!

Thanks all for the constructive posts.

Cheers, Slyv


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desmet 




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Re: night shots - half abandoned iron foundry
<Reply # 8 on 1/12/2006 2:34 PM >
Posted on Forum: UER Forum
 
Posted by Noah Vale
Just cause they are purple doesn't mean they aren't stars. I think most stars are not simply white, as we see them, but are indeed colored. Reason being that in the dark of night, we are using our rods instead of our cones, which are pisspoor for color rendition. The techmology of film bypasses this biological annoyance and we see stars as the color they really are in the print.



This is all true, but I do not think for a second that's what's going on here. Based on the quality of the photos, and based on the fact that I see this all the time with P+S digital cameras, I would say that it's an error without any question at all. The star is probably real, but I doubt very much the color is. Regardless of whether it's an error or real, it's still distracting. Whether or not there's a neon purple star in the sky is irrelevant...I think it's distracting and I would clone it out. I spent an hour cloning a fence out of some NoHo shots...should I not have done that simply because the fence is a real object?
[last edit 1/12/2006 2:35 PM by desmet - edited 1 times]

desmet 




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Re: night shots - half abandoned iron foundry
<Reply # 9 on 1/12/2006 2:41 PM >
Posted on Forum: UER Forum
 
Posted by Slyv
Thanks for the long coments desmet!
Actually, these hot pixels were stars. They are really distracting on #1, I agree! Will remove them to build a better shot.

So what's the point of having a high ISO settings on a digital camera? Did not play a lot with the iso settings, but will do on my next expedition for sure. I'm always working with a tripod, so exposure time does not really matters.

Some of these pics were already noise-filtered, but I guess my camera is not good for nightshots.
Anyway, got a new one, will post soon some more nightshots!

Thanks all for the constructive posts.

Cheers, Slyv




No problem!

The point of high ISO on digital cameras is to increase shutter speed. So, if you were, say, shooting a passing race car towards the end of the day when it's starting to get dark, you might bump the ISO up in order to be able to get a fast enough shutter speed to stop the action in the low light. Another time would be if you're hand holding. If you have your aperture wide open and are still only getting a shutter speed of something like 1/30, you might bump up the ISO a stop in order to be able to use 1/60 for a camera-shake free picture. When you're shooting with a tripod (assuming you're not under pressure) exposure time doesn't matter, so you should shoot at a low ISO in order to have as little noise as possible. Some people will bump the ISO a stop (say from 50 to 100 or from 100 to 200) even on the tripod...people have different reasons for doing that...but I personally always shoot at the lowest ISO my camera allows when using a tripod.

Really great shots. Would definitely like to see more!

Slyv 


Location: Belgium, kingdom of UE
Gender: Male




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Re: night shots - half abandoned iron foundry
<Reply # 10 on 1/12/2006 2:59 PM >
Posted on Forum: UER Forum
 
OK, will shot everything at 80 iso next time.

Just another question: about this layer mask, I did not get it! Do you mean that I should lighten up only a part of the image?

Cheers, Slyv

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desmet 




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Re: night shots - half abandoned iron foundry
<Reply # 11 on 1/12/2006 3:42 PM >
Posted on Forum: UER Forum
 
Posted by Slyv
OK, will shot everything at 80 iso next time.

Just another question: about this layer mask, I did not get it! Do you mean that I should lighten up only a part of the image?

Cheers, Slyv


There are two ways of doing it. This will probably seem too complicated. I recommend looking for tutorials on the web (there are plenty!) if you're interested.

First way...

  • Go to Layer > New Adjustment Layer and then choose Brightness and Contrast.
    Tweak the brightness and contrast specifically for the shadows, ignore the highlights.
  • Go to the layers pallette and click on the little white box in the adjustment layer you just created.
  • Choose the paint bucket and set the color to black. Click in the picture to fill the layer mask in the adjustment layer with black (the picture will go back to looking how it did before)
  • Choose the paintbrush. Set Opacity to 100%, flow to about 7% (experiment). Set the color to white.
  • Start painting in the shadows. You will see the picture from the adjustment layer you created start to come through. Just keep painting in until it looks good.


Second way...


  • Create a Duplicate of the layer
  • Use brightness/contrast and anything else you want. Process for the shadows and ignore the highlights.
  • Go to the layers palette and click the add layer mask button
  • Select the paint bucket, select black, dump black into the layer mask
  • Select paintbrush, color white, opacity 100, flow 7%
  • Paint in the shadows and the layer you just modified will start to show through.


Slyv 


Location: Belgium, kingdom of UE
Gender: Male




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Re: night shots - half abandoned iron foundry
<Reply # 12 on 1/15/2006 7:50 PM >
Posted on Forum: UER Forum
 
Desmet, thank you, I'll try it.
I did also lots of night shots this w-e, low-iso, will post them for review. Thanks again for all.

Cheers, Slyv


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UER Forum > Archived UE Photo Critiques > night shots - half abandoned iron foundry (Viewed 422 times)



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