Night Building

[Neville Bailey]

This is my first night shot of a building, using a borrowed tripod. I have been using my newly acquired Pentax *ist DL camera for just over a week now, having only used point-and-shoot compact cameras previously.

I would value feedback regarding my composition and exposure, and any other constructive criticism.

The specs of the picture are:
F-stop: f/5.6
Exposure time: 6 sec
ISO speed: ISO-200
Focal length: 40mm

[Hill Country Hack]

I really like the shot. An interesting group of buildings with differing shapes.

As for composition, what is your subject? If the building in the center of the frame is the subject, try messing with the crop as to move it more to the left or right.

To counter that, I really like the small building in the left of the frame and the cut outs on the wall in the right of frame. I would really hate to lose both those objects as I feel they add so much to the overall scene. If your original capture is larger, then maybe you can mess about with the cropping.

I believe you would be better served shooting at f8-11 to maintaint DOF from front to back and left to right. The DOF at what you shot at was just a bit short for my taste.

All that said, I really like this shot and you did a great job. I'd hang that in my house.

[Czrich86]

I definitely like the different types of buildings in this shot. The contrasting architectures give a nice effect.
Employing the rule of thirds on this shot would make a definite improvement. Like Hill Country Hack said, if you get the centered building more to the left or right (on a 1/3rd line) it would ease up the composition.
You might also want to make sure that strong vertical lines like the blue lights up the center building are parallel to the picture edge. This one is tipped slightly to the right, but you can fix that easily with post processing. Another option that could make this shot very could would be using a dutch angle to get some cool perspective using the staggered buildings on the right.Dutch angle - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I don't have any issues with the DOF, but I don't really like the pine tree on the left that juts out into the image. Not sure you can do anything about that though except maybe find a different angle.

Overall I do like the shot a lot, especially how you captured the colder colors of the center building contrasting the very warm lighting on the left building. Great job for your first night shot!

[Corey Thompson]

My only real complaint about the photo is the color of the sky. This is just a suggestion. If you shot this in raw format, try setting the white balance to tungsten in lightroom or photoshop and then adjust the color levels, vibrancy, etc from there. I do this with all my night shots and it really helps to cool down the night sky. This is all a matter of personal preference though, so take this with a grain of salt.