[jawsy]

Opinions please, #1, 2, or 3? They were all taken a few minutes apart from each other; stitched from two images. Any general comments on crop or PP also appreciated.

Thanks in advance.

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Last edited by jawsy; 04-26-2016 at 03:16 AM.

[lepiallou]

I like the first one the most.
Warmer colors for the sky compared to the 2nd and 3rd.

But the car flow of the second is more important, making it more visible in the frame, and the starburts are more important on this one too... I guess lower aperture?

The third one seems almost like an HDR to me... And I am not to keen of it.

So to me the second would be best if you could get the colors of the first one, else the first goes great.

Anyhow thats three nice shots

[Eder]

Too much blue for a night photo on 2nd and 3rd, first one looks more natural

[nomadkng]

my question is, what focal length did you shoot these at? if I had to guess around 20mm?

the reason is that the straight lines of several of the buildings appear distorted (some leaning in/some leaning out), the most conflicting of which being the double shell roofed one near the middle. it just seems "off" to me

when making panos, I use the flattest lens I can and if I have to take 4 images to cover the entire scene rather than 2, that's what I do
also, often pano shooters will shoot vertical frames (6-8) and stich those together because most of your lens distortion and loss or resolution is at the edges. shooting vertically allows you to crop out a lot of that

Too much blue for a night photo on 2nd and 3rd, first one looks more natural

there's actual a couple time frames during nautical twilight called the "blue hour" and the "purple hour". these occur within a couple hours of sunset depending on latitude and time of year. the blue in the 3rd image is very typical of the "blue hour"

with that said, it would might be the next photo session, if you can spare the time, give yourself a few hours and take images over the course of that time and note how the sky responds to your long exposures. you may prefer the "purple hour" or you may prefer full black and let the city light pollution tint things kinda yellow or green depending on the city. also you can get different responses with narrow apertures and long exposures versus a wide aperture and a shorter exposure, same lighting conditions, but they will have different effects on your image.

compositionally, I have no issues with the crops, but without actually seeing the 2 raw images you had to work with, I can't even comprehend alternatives (if any)

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Last edited by nomadkng; 06-19-2014 at 02:44 PM.

[jawsy]

Focal lengths were 29mm. Any wider and I'd have had to stitch vertically as you suggest. I didn't have the option as I didn't have access to a tripod and had to use a concrete wall that happened to line up perfectly for a flat pano. I took a range of photos from sunset through to dark (~30) and these three are most aesthetically pleasing to me, I'm just having trouble picking between them. The darker images aren't that great without water in the foreground.

The building in the middle is intriguing. I have a couple of images taken with this in the centre and the 'distortion' is still there, but not on the adjacent two. Fiddling with distortion correction in PP doesn't change this building. It is almost as though the building angle itself has an optically illusory characteristic.

The off camera jpg's for the first two are here for info.

[tootall]

I'd also go with option 1. Having taken that shot many times a different times of the day myself (including giga shot), I think you have the right lighting.

Ideally you'd have a tripod and shot at 50mm, but if you didn't have one there at time... I also shoot at my lowest ISO at night (with a tripod)

Regardless you've taken some really nice shots.

[jawsy]

Cheers, appreciate the feedback.

I've been caught out before using low ISO for longer exposures on the K20D due to the increase in noise that comes with the lengthy exposure; challenging but frustrating at the same time. I only had one chance so I played safe with 400 to keep the exposure reltively short (<10sec.) I might try 200 next time with a tripod and longer focal length.