Low light photographs

[cf73]

Hi All,

The last couple of times I have gone to Sydney Airport I have tried some low light phorography.

The first time I tried it with the VR on and a monopod, the results were terrible and I subsequently found out that you should not use a monopod/tripod with the VR or IS function on. Lesson learnt.

Last weekend I had another go at it and was quite pleased with the results so I selected some did a bit of editing and posted them up. I am a bit concerned with the exposure but the histogram on both looked not bad to me (both the dark and light pixels were close to the edge of the histogram) so they only needed a small tweak of the levels, and saturation.

These are the two I have in the queue which were taken in low light, what are your thoughts?

http://www.jetphotos.net/viewqueued_b.php?id=2029964

http://www.jetphotos.net/viewqueued_b.php?id=2030034

I probably should have put this thread up before posting but it wasnt until the photos were in the queue that I had a further look and had my doubts.

Cheers
Carl

[Vishal Jolapara]

Carl i love the photos however, speaking from a technical standpoint the FedEx looks a tad soft to me also did u apply more hues than saturation ? as it appears slightly blueish green or are the evening colours down-under naturally that way ?

The MH 74 is a very sweet shot btw, the nose titles & the tail logo + the reg'n appear a little soft, you can just selectively (lasso) sharpen those areas up.

Cheers Mate

[cf73]

Hi Vishal,

Thanks for the positive feedback. The hue wasn't touched, only the saturation, this seems to be the natural colour of the sky especially in winter.

I use automatic white balance.

My PS skills are pretty limited, but I should have a go at the lasso function sometime.

Thanks again
Carl

[Simpleboy]

Don't use the lasso to selectively sharpen it, use layer masks.

ctrl + j will duplicate the layer

sharpen till the area you want to be sharp is sharp, ignore the rest of the photo, and don't worry about minor overshapening, this will be fixed later,

hold down alt and click the white circle in the grey box at the bottom of the layers window, all sharpening should now disappear.

Using a paintbrush of appropriate size and settings (I use a soft edge and ~20% opacity), select white on black and paint in the areas that need to be sharpened, this will bring the sharpening through, stop at desired setting.

ctrl + e will merge the visible layers.

[ollieholmes]

Follow the others advise and those photos will be realy nice.

[cf73]

Thanks all for the advice, I am going to work on these images again using the techniques mentioned here.

If the originals get accepted then I will just re-submit them, if they get rejected then I havent lost out anyway. All good.!

Cheers
Carl

[NickN]

Carl,


They need a nice dose of Noise Ninja to get rid of some of that noise.

I live in Sydney and don't mind some low light photography myself I'd be happy to pass on a free copy of the software if you want it.

[NickN]

Hope you don't mind I ran your pic through Noise Ninja and did some small saturation/contract adjustments and some minor sharpness adjustments and this is how I managed to get it to come out. Notice all the noise has dissapeared from the lower fuselage.


http://picasaweb.google.com/aroundsy...91249397930402

[cf73]

Hi Nick,

Thanks for this, the result is much better. If you could forward the software it would be great.
I will PM you so you have my email address

Thanks again.

Carl

[Will M]

Now it's well and truly overprocessed .............

[cf73]

My Malaysia 747 got accepted but the Fed-Ex got rejected due to underexposure / too dark. I will have another go at it, but I didnt think it was. The problem at that location is that the runway has lost all direct sunlight and the background is still light. What are your thoughts?

Thanks for all help provided.

[cf73]

My Malaysia 747 got accepted but the Fed-Ex got rejected due to underexposure / too dark. I will have another go at it, but I didnt think it was. The problem at that location is that the runway has lost all direct sunlight and the background is still light. What are your thoughts?

Thanks for all help provided.

Please disregard this post, I will post it in the digital processing thread re rejections etc.

Cheers