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London by night, advice on BW vs RGB...(pics)

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Fred Villain

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These shots are made of long and short exposures combined to capture movements and night lights.

Tip: I don't own a tripod so I used a trick I found in this forum, a sock full of rice!! It works a treat, put the sock on a stable support (wall, floor, etc...), then put the camera on it, change its orientation until you get the desired shot. It will stay stable for 30 sec exposures or more.

I'd like to know if you guys prefer the BW or color shots?!?

Thanks for the comments...











----------------------------------------------------------
My Galleries at: http://fvillain.gotadsl.co.uk
 
These are beautiful shots. Hard to decide which is better, color or b/w? I think the color ones are nice since they seem more ethereal and contrasty. Just a personal opinion. Great work!

Rice
 
I love B&W in general. I really can't get enough of good B&W photos. Nice work!!

-Vito
 
Fred. Villain said:
These shots are made of long and short exposures combined to
capture movements and night lights.
Click to expand...
Fred, very interesting. However by watching the pictures (very nice ones btw) it's not obvious to me what makes the difference to just long exposures.

Can you give me an example what this combination of long and short exposures does to the picture? Maybe just posting both exposures so that I can get a clue?

Thank you,
Daniel
 
Awesome shots! Please explain your post-processing so that we can understand your technique.
haktar said:
Fred. Villain said:
These shots are made of long and short exposures combined to
capture movements and night lights.
Click to expand...
Fred, very interesting. However by watching the pictures (very nice
ones btw) it's not obvious to me what makes the difference to just
long exposures.
Can you give me an example what this combination of long and short
exposures does to the picture? Maybe just posting both exposures so
that I can get a clue?

Thank you,
Daniel
Click to expand...
 
Hi Tim,

All shot in RAW:

Pic 1:
Several pictures stacked in PS to reduce noise on long exposures...
Make : NIKON CORPORATION
Model : NIKON D70
ImageWidth : 3040
ImageHeight : 2014
BitsPerSample : 12
ExposureTime : 13.00Sec
FNumber : F18.0
ExposureProgram : Manual
MeteringMode : Division
Flash : Not fired
FocalLength : 18.00(mm)
SensingMethod : OneChipColorArea sensor
ExposureMode : Manual
WhiteBalance : Manual
FocalLength(35mm) : 27(mm)
Contrast : Normal
Saturation : Normal
Sharpness : Normal
SubjectDistanceRange : Unknown

Pic 2:
Make : NIKON CORPORATION
Model : NIKON D70
ImageWidth : 3040
ImageHeight : 2014
BitsPerSample : 12
ExposureTime : 15.00Sec
FNumber : F9.0
ExposureProgram : Manual
FocalLength : 40.00(mm)
ExposureMode : Manual
WhiteBalance : Manual
FocalLength(35mm) : 60(mm)
Contrast : Normal
Saturation : Normal
Sharpness : Normal

Pic 3:
Make : NIKON CORPORATION
Model : NIKON D70
ImageWidth : 3040
ImageHeight : 2014
BitsPerSample : 12
ExposureTime : 10.00Sec
FNumber : F9.0
ExposureProgram : Manual
MeteringMode : Division
FocalLength : 34.00(mm)
ExposureMode : Manual
WhiteBalance : Manual
Contrast : Normal
Saturation : Normal
Sharpness : Normal

But mainly I used different exposures to get the movement in the long exposures, and enough details in the light areas, I'll post an example of the original pics soon...

----------------------------------------------------------
My Galleries at: http://fvillain.gotadsl.co.uk
 
Fred. Villain said:
These shots are made of long and short exposures combined to
capture movements and night lights.

Tip: I don't own a tripod so I used a trick I found in this forum,
a sock full of rice!! It works a treat, put the sock on a stable
support (wall, floor, etc...), then put the camera on it, change
its orientation until you get the desired shot. It will stay stable
for 30 sec exposures or more.

I'd like to know if you guys prefer the BW or color shots?!?

Thanks for the comments...











----------------------------------------------------------
My Galleries at: http://fvillain.gotadsl.co.uk
----------------------------------------------------------
Click to expand...
Fantastic pictures Fredderick, I'm inspired by what I see on your website
 
TKphoto186192 said:
Awesome shots! Please explain your post-processing so that we can
understand your technique.
haktar said:
Fred. Villain said:
These shots are made of long and short exposures combined to
capture movements and night lights.
Click to expand...
Fred, very interesting. However by watching the pictures (very nice
ones btw) it's not obvious to me what makes the difference to just
long exposures.
Can you give me an example what this combination of long and short
exposures does to the picture? Maybe just posting both exposures so
that I can get a clue?

Thank you,
Daniel
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
These are 2 examples of the shots I used. These are straight out of the camera no post processing (just crop and color profile change for the web)



As you can see the first one has got lots of blown highlights, but that's the only way I could get the interresting movement of the water.

I first used several same long exposures like this one, and stacked them together to reduce noise in PS. (several layers with different blending percentages)

Then I needed to get the details back for the very bright areas (Bridge, boat, building lights, etc...)

So I used this shot:



Then in PS I combined all these shots with layer masks.

Played with curves, crop, bw, then a bit of work on the sharpness for some more details on the bridge, boat, etc...

That was my first night session so now I guess I am a bit more prepared to know what's needed to get the shots right. If it stops raining here I might go back again :)

Hope this helps...

Fred.

----------------------------------------------------------
My Galleries at: http://fvillain.gotadsl.co.uk
 
very beautiful works Fred, i really like the B&W version, it present the different level of grey and well present the contrast too.

rgds
kevin
Fred. Villain said:
These shots are made of long and short exposures combined to
capture movements and night lights.

Tip: I don't own a tripod so I used a trick I found in this forum,
a sock full of rice!! It works a treat, put the sock on a stable
support (wall, floor, etc...), then put the camera on it, change
its orientation until you get the desired shot. It will stay stable
for 30 sec exposures or more.

I'd like to know if you guys prefer the BW or color shots?!?

Thanks for the comments...











----------------------------------------------------------
My Galleries at: http://fvillain.gotadsl.co.uk
----------------------------------------------------------
Click to expand...
--
Kevin
http://www.dreammedia.com.hk/kevin
 
Fred. Villain said:
Fred Villain said:
Fantastic pictures Fredderick, I'm inspired by what I see on your
website
Click to expand...
Thanks!! Any preference on the BW vs Color?!?

----------------------------------------------------------
My Galleries at: http://fvillain.gotadsl.co.uk
----------------------------------------------------------
Click to expand...
I think eitehr looks really good and I suppose if I had to choose which I prefered then the colour would get my vote, but only by a slight margin
 
Fred. Villain said:
Fred Villain said:
Awesome shots! Please explain your post-processing so that we can
understand your technique.
haktar said:
Fred. Villain said:
These shots are made of long and short exposures combined to
capture movements and night lights.
Click to expand...
Fred, very interesting. However by watching the pictures (very nice
ones btw) it's not obvious to me what makes the difference to just
long exposures.
Can you give me an example what this combination of long and short
exposures does to the picture? Maybe just posting both exposures so
that I can get a clue?

Thank you,
Daniel
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
These are 2 examples of the shots I used. These are straight out of
the camera no post processing (just crop and color profile change
for the web)



As you can see the first one has got lots of blown highlights, but
that's the only way I could get the interresting movement of the
water.
I first used several same long exposures like this one, and stacked
them together to reduce noise in PS. (several layers with different
blending percentages)

Then I needed to get the details back for the very bright areas
(Bridge, boat, building lights, etc...)

So I used this shot:



Then in PS I combined all these shots with layer masks.

Played with curves, crop, bw, then a bit of work on the sharpness
for some more details on the bridge, boat, etc...

That was my first night session so now I guess I am a bit more
prepared to know what's needed to get the shots right. If it stops
raining here I might go back again :)

Hope this helps...
Click to expand...
Fred, thank you for your explanation, didn't had time this weak to read earlier.
This is very interesting, I'll try that for my next night shots.

Daniel
 
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