Light Trails First Attempt - Critique Please

[jcarley0830]

I am very new to the DSLR scene and this is my first real attempt at light trails. I think this and star trails are fascinating so I decided to give it a go.

I had 4 shots that came out good and I merged them in Photoshop Elements to draw out the trails. Applied a little less shadow to make trees in skyline a little visible and increased the highlights to draw more color out of the trails.

Was hoping to get shots shots closer to dusk to show sky better, but the location I had planned on shooting at didn't work and by the time I found a spot, the sun had already set.

Really don't know what a finished shot should ultimately look like. I think this looks pretty decent, but then again I know very little!

Exif Info
Canon EOS Rebel T2i
ISO 100
Aperture 20
Exposure 20 seconds
Focal Length 116mm

[Barry Jackson]

Nice job.

I don't see any trees in the skyline but I don't know if you need them.

I usually don't like a real bright spot close to the edge like the one in the upper left, but here I think it works.

[Doug Sundseth]

I think your light trails make an interesting shape, but I think they (especially the headlight trails) are a bit overexposed. You can fix this by narrowing the aperture and increasing the exposure time to compensate. You have to do it this way because you're balancing transient lights (much like flash from a strobe) with continuous lights (the bridge in the background, for instance), which means that aperture affects everything but time affects only the continuous sources.

It looks to me like you have some softness in your background. I suspect this was caused by camera vibration, possibly from wind or vibration of whatever you were standing on. (If it was a bridge, the latter is both fairly likely and very hard to correct for.

With a symmetrical element like the bridge taking up so much of the photo, I'd like to see it either completely centered or obviously off-center. The current position looks like an error to me.

HTH

[jcarley0830]

Thanks for the feedback.

I was on a bridge with a fence that was not cooperating, so I actually set my camera right on bridge deck to get a shot under the fence. This likely is what's causing the softness.

I will increase the time frame and adjust the aperture next time to try and reduce the over exposure look of the headlights.

Thanks again!!