Night at Nottingham Uni

[Kimmett]

I went for a wander just after sunset yesterday, armed with camera and tripod. However, it was not until I got to my destination that I realised my memory card was still in my card reader!

Luckily, I had two spare 16mb cards in my camera bag. This meant that I couldn't exactly get a lot of photos (16 in all). What I think were the best 2 are below:

I was a little annoyed that I couldn't get the whole reflection in here, but my camera refused to go any wider, and if I moved backwards, then the path I was standing on would get in the frame anyway .

This one was jolly difficult to compose, as in the darkness, the screen on my camera showed absolutely nothing. Does anyone have any tips for trying to compose pictures in conditins like this by the way?

Both have had a little cloning to get rid of some stuff that was on the lens, and the top one had a little burning done to the sky, as it was a touch overexposed on the original. Oh, and there was a nasty looking chimney sticking out of the treeline on the second, so that had to go as well.

Cheers

Kimmett

 

[Venomator]

Top one is a good attempt Kimmett - and you are right about the reflection ... fitting it all in would probably have made a good one great !

The second is may be a little under-exposed ... for me anyway and made worse, for some reason as it shows up very pixelated when I open it !

When you say screen on your camera - doews that mean you do not have a view-finder ? If not I suppose it can only be triel and error ? Not much help I know but I have limited experience of screen only pics.

Great to share your attempts though - nothing ventured and all that ...

 

[Ribby]

Not sure about these:

#1 I think could have been taken at a wider angle (or further away) so we can see all of the reflection in the water. Also, the reflection would have been sharpeh on another night when the water is dead calm. The lighting on the uni itself is nice though

#2 Far too dark (but you already new that). If you shot in RAW you might be able to tweak the exposure up but I'm guessing you'd end up with quite a bit of noise and naff brightness/contrast. Best taken during the sunset maybe?

Just my opinion.

 

[SammyC]

Ahhh, Nott Uni. You should get some photos of the buttery bar to show what state it is in now. When I was there (93-96) they seemed to need to paint it awful colours!

 

[Kimmett]

I agree that the second could do with being brighter, but that was the longest my shutter could stay open, and at the time my brain was frozen, so I didn't think to open up the aperture .

The S5500 can take RAW photos, however I haven't got the knack of editing them. There are only 2 programs that can edit them, S7raw, and UFraw, and neither seem to get the default colours/exposure right, which means a lot of work on each photo, just to get the image to look as it does on the in-camera preview.

The S5500 however does not have an optical viewinder, it's either an EVF or the LCD on the back, makes composition a bit difficult in the dark!

As for the student bar, The buttery is now the Ark! I wouldn't say the colours are particularly awful, but it is very naff, sort of expected of a student bar, however it is also quite expensive, really not expected from a student bar!

Cheers

Kimmett

 

[Kimmett]

Had a little play with levels and curves, and I think it's a little better now. The large version is much improved after a little play around. Really should have done that in the first place!

EDIT: jpeg compression has destroyed the detail in the image a bit there

 

[Ribby]

That's much better matey