Melbourne Night

[pasoviennese]

Camera: Canon 30D
Lens: Tamron 18-270 f3.5-6.3
Exposure: 30s
Aperture: f/11
ISO: 100

I wonder if the white light on the left hand side is a bit distracting? The colour temperature seems to stand out compare to everything else in the photo. What about the moon? At the start I liked it, but now I'm not too sure. Any other comments and critics are most welcomed!

Thanks for looking!

[jughead]

Yeah,I think the glare on the left side and the moon is a bit distracting..
but in my opinion the picture is too crowded,maybe you could make it into 3 separate pictures,1 of the building on the left with the waterway,1 of that cathedral (i think) in the middle,and 1 of the buildings with the bridge as foreground

[gnownad]

Wow, that's quite a busy picture! I don't know if you did anything to the moon, but if it was slightly more outlined it would have a more awesome effect IMO. That bright light on the left is a tiny bit distracting, but only when you're looking at that portion of the picture- there's so much else to take in I didn't notice it at first!

[pasoviennese]

Yeah,I think the glare on the left side and the moon is a bit distracting..
but in my opinion the picture is too crowded,maybe you could make it into 3 separate pictures,1 of the building on the left with the waterway,1 of that cathedral (i think) in the middle,and 1 of the buildings with the bridge as foreground

Thanks! I'll try that and see how it turns out.

Wow, that's quite a busy picture! I don't know if you did anything to the moon, but if it was slightly more outlined it would have a more awesome effect IMO. That bright light on the left is a tiny bit distracting, but only when you're looking at that portion of the picture- there's so much else to take in I didn't notice it at first!

The shot was straight out of my camera, I didn't do anything.

Also, people say that this shot is NOT sharp. When I took it, I had my camera resting on a rock platform, and used the timer to release shutter. It was on auto focus with the centre focus point, also it was taken at f11 for more DOF.

I don't understand on how this photo is not sharp (according to their word "not in focus") and what else I can do to have it sharper?

[offwhitedog]

Originally Posted by pasoviennese

I don't understand on how this photo is not sharp (according to their word "not in focus") and what else I can do to have it sharper?

For some reason, following the link to Flickr doesn't give the option to look at a larger version (to check the sharpness) or the EXIF data for the focal length.

I'd say that if you're sure the focus was right, then the next thing to look at is your lens. I have a similar Tamron (28-300mm in my case), and it certainly has it's advantages (don't get me wrong, I'm very happy with mine) but it's not a truly tack-sharp lens, sadly. There's a test chart of your lens here, which shows that at 18mm and at 70mm+ you get definite softness away from the centre at f/11.

But there are also a couple of other reasons, possibly. Your lens is a "VC" lens (that's Vibration Control, for anyone not familiar with Tamrons), and it's generally a good idea to turn this off if you are shooting on a tripod, because if there is effectively no vibration from how you support the camera, the VC motor can end up adding vibration.

Also have you tried using mirror lockup for that extra bit of sharpness?

Or finally, maybe it's just a gust of wind at the wrong moment or something unfortunate like that. If you were shooting at a long focal length, the camera is soooo sensitive to tiny vibrations like this.

But... having said all that, the key point is "...if you're sure the focus was right..." - because that's not so easy in low light (or at least I've not found a way I can 100% trust my camera anyway). Best option I've come up with is switch to live mode and get the 10x magnification on the screen and check the focus yourself... you can adjust manually or get the camera to re-try, whatever your preference. Good luck!