Two Nightime Street Photos

Varmit · 07-25-2005, 11:41 PM

Both of these were in Downtown Canton GA and were taken at night. The only light was streetlights. The exposures were both like 30secs or more. The streetlights gave me a hard time getting the white balance right :0

This one is a wire on a emergency cutoff switch on a power pole.

This one is a restaurant in Downtown Canton GA called "The Downtown Kitchen". I do know that I need to straighten it a bit .... got lazy I guess.

Thoughts?

{OF}Blong · 07-26-2005, 06:18 AM

nice very nice

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Capt. Insane · 07-26-2005, 06:45 AM

haha at first i thought the first one was a shoe lace

{OF}Malicious Assault · 07-26-2005, 09:35 AM

Nice picutres, to bad that street light was there in the second one, but nice clear pictures

Soul · 07-26-2005, 10:08 AM

I really like the night time one. Nice work.

Hakko · 07-26-2005, 11:23 AM

Question first: Did you photoshop the second picture at all? And is this with that Canon 20D you just bought?

Varmit · 07-26-2005, 12:27 PM

I only did a crop/straighten and a little unsharp mask to it..thats it. I take that back.. I got rid of an electrical line that was on the left side of the building and crossed into the sky...I just cloned it out.. other than that..nothing. I'd set a custom white balance by taking a photo through two coffee filters at the street light in close. That gave me a good start. I shot it in RAW and adjusted the color temp to like 2450k which is what the light was emitting. I don't count that as photoshop work though since I just did what the camera would have done..but I did it in PS. I used my kit 18 - 55mm canon lens that came with my 300d . I needed the wide angle part for some of the street shots I took last night. I think it was at either ISO 100 or 200 and roughly a 30 sec exposure at f16 or f22..can't remember exactly. An no...it was with my old 300d digital rebel....I didn't unpack the 20d until I got home last night and I would have been too afraid to use it on my cheap tripod anyway .... i'd hate for it to fall of and clunk on the ground!!

Soul...both those were at night ....by street lights. I'm planning on doing some more night street photography and I love how the sky was just pure blue in the photo even though it was almost completely black in person.....it was quite fun!

ilikemittens · 07-26-2005, 12:54 PM

I thought it was a shoelace too Capt because I wear metal shoelaces

Really nice pics Varm! I love the colors in the second one and I can tell you'll get some other really good ones when you scout out a few new places. I like the blue sky effect too!

One thing I never understood though is the white balance thing. I guess because I don't know how to do it with my camera. You said you took a picture through 2 coffee filters... what does that do? I guess I need an explanation of white balance. There's a "white balance" thing on my camera that I can move a slider up (which starts turning everything blue) or down (red) but I always thought that was just for effect. I know there's a thing that does custom WB too. Maybe that's where I'm supposed to hold up a gray card (like I've read somewhere before) or take a pic through coffee filters or something, but I don't really know what that does.

Varmit · 07-26-2005, 01:04 PM

For very simple explanations... you can read this.. http://www.dpreview.com/learn/?/Glos...Balance_01.htm

then read this
http://camerahacks.com/2005/03/22/ge...t-filter-ever/

You can buy expensive discs that will do the same thing as the coffee filter..but I can get close enough with my cheap coffee filters and they fit all my lenses when I hold the filters in front of them

It also helps if you camera can do any kind of RAW mode shooting so you capture all the info and make your own fine tweaks later in the raw converter.

ilikemittens · 07-26-2005, 01:24 PM

Thanks Varm... I understand what it means/does now. I just have to find out how to set a custom WB on my camera. My cousin's more expensive camera has some of those auto settings like Sunlight, Cloudy, Flourescent, etc. but mine doesn't. I can shoot in RAW mode but I've heard bad things about doing that and I've never really tried it.

I think I know how to set a custom WB... I'll try an experiment later today or tomorrow. I'll take like 3 pics of something in the house without the custom WB and then 3 with. Hmmm... I hope I can do this right.

Oh and BTW Varm, I've decided not to shelf my camera and give up. I was going through some pics of downtown Columbus I took (when I got lost on the way home from taking Chem to the airport lol) and even through the windshield, some of these pics were nice and clear like they used to be. Of course I had perfect natural lighting, so I'm thinking my problems lately have been due to poor lighting. I'm still pissed that in low light I can't seem to get one decent pic. But I'm just going to keep trying.