Vatican at Night

[Craigger]

Hi Everyone - I took this one of the Vatican in Rome somewhat recently. The photograph is taken looking northwest from south end of Ponte Umberto 1. It has not been retouched whatsoever, only limiting the longest side to 740px.

In the camera I set the Sharpness to Hard and the Saturation to High. In fact, in most of my photos now I use those settings...

I've shown it around to friends and such and they think it's "great" or "amazing" but I'm looking for some real feedback that I can build on for future night shootings...all comments appreciated.

Equipment
Nikon D5000
Nikkor AF-S DX 18-200mm
ISO 200
Shutter Priority
Exposure 1 second
F-stop F/5
Focal Length 70mm

Thanks,
Craig

[Daisho]

A nice shot, that with a few adjustments would be a great shot.
1. The frame is inclined a bit towards the left...
2. You should have gone for a longer exposure to flatten the water surface and give you a clearer reflection

Hope that helps, Architecture etc. is not my strong suit

[IABoomer]

It is a good "blue hour" shot. You caught some texture to the sky which is nice. There's a good asymmetry from left to right, but a nice reflected symmetry from top to bottom.

There is a very slight tilt to the bridge. You could use the bridge to level out the picture. You might also consider shooting this in aperture priority instead, and stopping down the aperture a bit more to create a deeper depth of field which will get you more detail from front to back. Try around f/8-10. This would have the side effect of making the exposure longer which could smooth out the water some.