Yesterday the sky was clear in New York. I had been waiting for such a clear day to do some night shots of the Manhattan Bridge, Brooklyn Bridge, and lower Manhattan where the sky would be a deep, stark blue in contrast to the red lights.. Here are a few different perspectives taken with varying focal lengths, all on the Nikon D800 at ISO 200. The exposure was set to f/8 and around 20 seconds. Keeping the shutter open that long allowed the flowing water to create a smooth blur.
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| For the most normal all-inclusive perspective of the scene with the Manhattan Bridge in the foreground, the Brooklyn Bridge behind, and lower Manhattan off to the right I used a 15mm focal length on a Sigma 12-24mm zoom lens. |
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| Choosing a 12mm focal length allowed me to come in closer to the foreground bridge for a more dramatic perspective on the same scene. |
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| Last night the moon was almost full. I was able to capture it with a deep silhouette of the Manhattan Bridge. The moon was about 5 stops brighter than the rest of the scene so I needed to capture the scene in two exposures -- one for the moon, one for the dark silhouette -- and combine them later. You cannot see it here because the image is presented so small, but there is full detail in the moon. |
The sky is too blue.
ReplyDeleteThe shots mimic the reciprocity failure that would normally have been evident in long exposure night shots of a sky done with film (Remember film?). Since these are shots made to sell and highly saturated blue is a very marketable color, I allowed the blue (and red) to dominate the scene in what I call a "Hi-color" palette.
ReplyDeleteI often do varying color palettes of a scene to appeal to different audiences. So, while the colors in these images may be too intense for one person, they could be right on for someone else. It's called "maximizing your marketable audience".
Another thing to keep in mind is that blog programs such as this one do shift both color and contrast of images from the original to a simpler palette. In this case, the images shown are both darker and more saturated than the originals done in Adobe RGB.