First attempt at Night Shots
Mon, 6 August, 2007 – 11:00 pm
Tonight was my first real attempt at night shots, using the Liverpool waterfront to photograph and shooting from across the Mersey. I say first real attempt as up until now I didn't have much of a clue about the settings and scene modes on my camera, or why the shaking hand kept appearing if I used the Night Landscape setting!
I managed to find a nice stone wall to stand the camera on, set the timer, pointed the camera and then told it to shoot. 10 seconds later it did. So it's at the best condition that it could be. The angle wasn't too good but to get a direct front on shot of the Liver Building would have meant a: passing the drunken couple having an argument further down, and b: there was a big ferry in the way!
I'm sure there are more settings I could change to improve the shot, I'm just working out what! 
Below is the cleaned up Photoshop version. Sharpened the photo using the Unsharp Mask, then I used the Noise -> Median filter on the sky and sea to get rid of the noise a little. I also straightened it and dumped some of the sea.
7 Responses to “First attempt at Night Shots”
Dave's photos are much better!
http://www.flickr.com/photos/ap4a/1032990295/
By Sarah on Aug 7, 2007
Just a thought, but did you use the self-timer mode to do away with the camera shake you get when you press the shutter button?
By Will on Aug 7, 2007
Heh yes, reread the post
I realised when the photos were blurring that I needed to use the self timer. When I realised I could also stand it still on something and not rely on my shaky hands, I had it stood on a pillar, timer on and stopped touching it!
The result is the best I'll probably get. The distance is just that bit too far for my little camera. Dave's photos were taken with a 75-300mm lens so clearly a big difference to my point-and-shoot camera
By Sarah on Aug 7, 2007
Oh yeah!
Optics are always going to be a limiting factor with compact cameras.
I'm planning on rejoining the world of SLRs before my hols next year.
I really like your shots from earlier in the evenings. There's just so much more character in the sky when it's dusky.
By Will on Aug 8, 2007
Cheers Will. I do my best not to edit anything I take, afterall Photography is not Photoshopping
However my night shots still need cleaning up just a little, mainly sharpening the main object and blurring the sky and ground.
Had a nice sunset last night, although so far New Brighton has to be the best place for photo sunsets (this side of the Mersey).
By Sarah on Aug 9, 2007
Have you tried varying the aperture on the same shot? You might find that your lens sweet spot is at a mid-range aperture, where you'll get the sharpest image.
By Will on Aug 9, 2007
I can't change anything like aperture, shutter speed etc. I have to rely on scene modes and the only 3 I have for night time is a night portrait, night landscape and fireworks. Fireworks doesn't allow self timer though, and so I used night landscape for these, the settings are then set by the camera after it determines what it needs as I look through the EXIF data and shutter times vary.
I need shots at about half the distance away, but I didn't feel like wading into the Mersey that night!
By Sarah on Aug 10, 2007