City of Light

[hadishafee]

CnC please.
Especially regarding the composition of the picture. Is it a good composition?
Also, is the picture overexposed? As this is my first trial in long exposure.


Camera: Canon EOS 1000D
Exposure: 226
Aperture: f/22.0
Focal Length: 55 mm
ISO Speed: 100
Exposure Bias: 0 EV
Flash: Off, Did not fire

[windrider86]

Within the guidelines are certain criteria that needs to be fulfilled to post in the critique section. Please take a moment to review them and then edit your post with the missing information.
Let me know if you need any help

[Ben Holder]

Awesome reflections! Only thing I would say is that the lights on the buildings look like they are clipped highlights. You can't read the red words at the top of the center building even on the full size photo. I can't tell if this is clipping, or if the cameras auto focus was set on something closer, or the camera got moved slightly. Overall, it is a great shot, but if you were to take it again, I would make the exposure a little bit faster, and make sure the focus is set on the buildings since they are the main subject. TFS

[hadishafee]

Originally Posted by Ben Holder

Awesome reflections! Only thing I would say is that the lights on the buildings look like they are clipped highlights. You can't read the red words at the top of the center building even on the full size photo. I can't tell if this is clipping, or if the cameras auto focus was set on something closer, or the camera got moved slightly. Overall, it is a great shot, but if you were to take it again, I would make the exposure a little bit faster, and make sure the focus is set on the buildings since they are the main subject. TFS

Is the clipping a bad thing? Will it lesser if the exposure faster? BTW, thanks for the CnC Ben Holder.

[jdloniak]

Nice shot, and the buildings looks great , I'm with Ben, the exposure was just that tad bit too long and let the light barely overexpose. But still a fantastic capture for your first time.

[Ben Holder]

Originally Posted by hadishafee

Is the clipping a bad thing? Will it lesser if the exposure faster? BTW, thanks for the CnC Ben Holder.

It isn't necessarily a bad thing, it all depends on what you are going for. This is probably review for you im sure, but if not, clipping highlights is where each little pixel receives so much light that it "fills up", and cannot store anymore light information. For a very basic example, imagine taking a 10 minute exposure of a forest in mid day. All you would get is a perfectly white image. This is clipped highlights. There are differing amounts of light coming into each pixel, but one-by-one they fill up to some maximum amount, and in the end they are all the same maximum brightness (white). This can happen pretty easily on bright days even with fast shutter speeds where say the sky ends up looking completely white.

My previous comment was referring to the lights on the buildings. It looks like you ended up loosing some of the finer details in these areas because they have all become the same brightness due to clipping.

Having said that, there is no reason why you cannot use that to your advantage in low light photos like this, it all depends on how you personally view the scene. If you like the kind of dreamy lighting you have achieved, then props to you.

In either case, it is a great first try at long exposure photography.

[hadishafee]

Originally Posted by jdloniak

Nice shot, and the buildings looks great , I'm with Ben, the exposure was just that tad bit too long and let the light barely overexpose. But still a fantastic capture for your first time.

Originally Posted by Ben Holder

It isn't necessarily a bad thing, it all depends on what you are going for. This is probably review for you im sure, but if not, clipping highlights is where each little pixel receives so much light that it "fills up", and cannot store anymore light information. For a very basic example, imagine taking a 10 minute exposure of a forest in mid day. All you would get is a perfectly white image. This is clipped highlights. There are differing amounts of light coming into each pixel, but one-by-one they fill up to some maximum amount, and in the end they are all the same maximum brightness (white). This can happen pretty easily on bright days even with fast shutter speeds where say the sky ends up looking completely white.

My previous comment was referring to the lights on the buildings. It looks like you ended up loosing some of the finer details in these areas because they have all become the same brightness due to clipping.

Having said that, there is no reason why you cannot use that to your advantage in low light photos like this, it all depends on how you personally view the scene. If you like the kind of dreamy lighting you have achieved, then props to you.

In either case, it is a great first try at long exposure photography.

Thanks for the comments. But, how do we know the best exposure time when in bulb mode, especially taking pictures at night?

[jdloniak]

Trial and error. Best teacher out there.

[sunwrites]

it's a stunning shot no doubt and in the first instance one really cannot find anything missing in it. some others have pointed out the clipped highlighting issue and i do agree with them. also i might have pushed the shoreline a little down to get a bit more of the skyline as the water is very still and there's nothing to catch the eye there except the reflections. but then i'm no expert.

[LeeR]

There is a good chance the highlights can be saved in this image if you know what you are doing. You are either going to need a RAW processor or a good PP program. I would suggest UFRAW or GIMP. Now days it is difficult to over expose an image and usually even those that look totally blown out can be fixed.