Low-light city landscape photo problems

Lots of good points about increasing exposure.

My humble contribution, in the form of a question: can you find a vantage point that's closer to your subject?

I agree with you. I've certainly been a bit clumsy and overconfident when I wrote the part about printing it and not seeing the noise. My whole comment was more about highlighting the fact that that taking pictures with high ISO settings is not always synonymous with blurry, noisy mess and that modern sensors handle that much better than what I was used to.

Aristide Rutilant wrote:

I agree with you. I've certainly been a bit clumsy and overconfident when I wrote the part about printing it and not seeing the noise. My whole comment was more about highlighting the fact that that taking pictures with high ISO settings is not always synonymous with blurry, noisy mess and that modern sensors handle that much better than what I was used to.

No question about it.  Back in my Canon xxD days, (particularly early on), I seem to recall anything shot at ISO 1600 to be a bit of a mess and not a real comfortable setting for shooting anything that you might plan to print large (particularly if you wanted to render fine detail).  That's changed a LOT over the years and I'm willing to go to ISO 1600 now without hesitation, if necessary, and even higher with a bit of PP work.

StopCzas wrote:

I`m posting other hand shot(test), and how main photo looks at +3EV with no other changes.

If someone want to look at original RAW(main photo), here it is

Hi,

there are definitely situations when you have to shoot at high ISO. You have an advantage if you shoot static scenes like you did here - you can shoot a burst of shots (lets´s say 20 shots), erase some possible blurry ones and then in PS or Affinity Photo (or in other editing software, but C1 can´t do it) you can average them as a so called Stack - the software will allign the shots, average them and you will end with a more detailed and much cleaner shot.

So that´s just a tip.

mike

Jerry-astro wrote:

StopCzas wrote:

Hey guys, I like to shoot after sunset, usually +1h max. I tried to capture the details of night city, but i think i failed. Apart from my mistakes, what can i upgrade to get better results with X-T3 sensor?

btw. XF 50-140 is out of budget

Regards

At the expense of being rather blunt, you might first look at upgrading your skills and experience a bit before looking for additional gear. The EXIF data suggests that you took this shot at ISO 80, which would incredibly low for such a dark environment. You can shoot as high as ISO 800 or even 1600 with little or no noise to deal with (or certainly nothing that would eliminate any of the detail in your shot). Your image is clearly highly underexposed.

Agree with the diagnosis (image underexposed, likely need to "upgrade the OP's skills rather than kit), but not with the proposed remedy (increase ISO).

This was clearly shot from a tripod (15s exposure), so sticking to low ISO has its merits.

Now, *IF* the OP wants a brighter image (but does he/she? - he deliberately shot it with "-1 EV exposure compensation"), I would recommend increasing the exposure time... perhaps by approximately 1 stop (i.e., reverting to "0" exposure comp.).

Before looking at different lenses, start by significantly increasing the amount of light in your exposure by increasing your ISO.

And therein lies the error: increasing ISO does NOT increase the amount of light in the exposure, all it does is increase the amplification of the signal. The ONLY way to increase the amount of light captured is to physically increase the exposure time (or use a wider aperture).

And one additional final suggestion from me, if you're shooting JPEGs: try Film Simulation = S, with Highlight Tone -2, Shadow Tone -2 for these types of scenes. You might be pleased.

Marco

marco1974 wrote:

Jerry-astro wrote:

StopCzas wrote:

Hey guys, I like to shoot after sunset, usually +1h max. I tried to capture the details of night city, but i think i failed. Apart from my mistakes, what can i upgrade to get better results with X-T3 sensor?

btw. XF 50-140 is out of budget

Regards

At the expense of being rather blunt, you might first look at upgrading your skills and experience a bit before looking for additional gear. The EXIF data suggests that you took this shot at ISO 80, which would incredibly low for such a dark environment. You can shoot as high as ISO 800 or even 1600 with little or no noise to deal with (or certainly nothing that would eliminate any of the detail in your shot). Your image is clearly highly underexposed.

Agree with the diagnosis (image underexposed, likely need to "upgrade the OP's skills rather than kit), but not with the proposed remedy (increase ISO).

This was clearly shot from a tripod (15s exposure), so sticking to low ISO has its merits.

Now, *IF* the OP wants a brighter image (but does he/she? - he deliberately shot it with "-1 EV exposure compensation"), I would recommend increasing the exposure time... perhaps by approximately 1 stop (i.e., reverting to "0" exposure comp.).

Before looking at different lenses, start by significantly increasing the amount of light in your exposure by increasing your ISO.

And therein lies the error: increasing ISO does NOT increase the amount of light in the exposure, all it does is increase the amplification of the signal. The ONLY way to increase the amount of light captured is to physically increase the exposure time (or use a wider aperture).

And one additional final suggestion from me, if you're shooting JPEGs: try Film Simulation = S, with Highlight Tone -2, Shadow Tone -2 for these types of scenes. You might be pleased.

Marco

^^^This

Shooting landscapes from tripod, as the OP is here, I would purposely set the camera to base (lowest) ISO. The only reason I would deviate from this is if I had moving vegetation, stars, or other objects that I wanted to be sharp. But for stationary objects, I can see no benefit to raising the ISO from base unless shooting handheld. Base ISO = Lower noise, higher dynamic range.

For this shot, you may try an exposure, then look at the histogram. If the histogram is mostly left of center, as I suspect it is here, try increasing exposure time. You don't want to bunch the histogram up on either left or right if you can help it, but you may choose to allow street lights or other small, bright, distant objects (like stars) to be overexposed (histogram starting to bunch up on the right edge). Take a few shots, go ahead and experiment with what you think may be overexposure. Often for night cityscapes, letting light sources go to over exposure pays off in what you get in the rest of the image.

Some (most) bodies do not allow longer than 30 second exposures in P, A., S, or M, mode. If this is the case with your body, you may have to look into using Bulb (B), or Time (T)(if your camera has T mode). Bulb will require you to hold the shutter release down for as long as you want the exposure to be (hint: use a remote). T mode will allow you to hit the shutter release once, let go, and the camera will leave the shutter open until you press the button again.

Short answer: OP, your shot is underexposed. For next time, keep ISO the same, but increase exposure time.