london light trails

[woody12]

Hi, this has been on my bucket list for a long while and for various reasons hasnt happened. But went to the city for the day with the sole reason to have a go. Really wanted a shorter speed to give the passing traffic some substance but 1 sec was blowing everything out, so three second exposures worked better but resulted in zips of colour. Was shooting at iso 100 and using a tripod, tried various fstops around f8 to f16 but was worndering if i should have waited to the light faded further. I wanted some colour in the sky and was told that ten minutes or so after sunset was the best time to shoot trails. Any thoughts good or bad would help for next time because i did enjoy it.

london light trails april 20th by woody174, on Flickr

 

[MattyW]

I think you perhaps should have waited a little longer. The glow post sunset sticks around for a while, and you can still extract detail in the sky up to 40 mins after sunset.
Perhaps you could have considered a closer composition , the bottom 50% of the image is dead to me. I'd have perhaps gone closer towards the buildings and composed to fill the frame a little more. Looking at the scaffolding around the buildings, i'd have considered shooting portrait on the other side of the road, factoring in the clock tower and the two turrets.

 

[woody12]

Thanks Matty what you say makes a lot of sense. I did take a lot more closer shots but none from the other side of the bridge. Oh well next time. To be honest was quite rushed which didn't help as the sunset was quite late and getting back home by train didn't give me a longer window.
With new knowledge will go back in October November when it's darker early to give myself time to shoot from different viewpoints so thanks for the idea. Still had a nice day with plenty of other pics so wasn't entirely a wasted day.