DSLRUsers.com

I thought I'd post at least one of the photos from last Saturday night. I'm sure we all have the same photos. I did say to Stubbsy earlier in the day that I was trying to get away from the postcardy kind of shots, and do more creative things. I failed, I forgot. Next time though. I'm very happy I upgraded my tripod just in time. The wind was very strong.

This is lovely Doug and one to be proud of postcard or not. Interestingly I don't have a single decent Luna Park shot since all my attention at dusk was on the southern skyline.

Now that is one nice image Well done.

Well done on the exposure - nice image.

It is a Postcard like it or not
J

Thanks Peter. I see Leigh took a photo of you photographing Luna Park. Once the sky went black, I didn't get anything interesting. I arrived just too late to get the nice magenta clouds. They lasted for only a couple of photos. I'll say once again how happy I am with my new Benro tripod. Every photo I took was sharp, the only blurs were from moving boats. Hello clone tool!

Thanks Oneputt, I really appreciate your comment.

Thanks for your comments Cricketfan, and Jethro.

Congrats on the tripod! I knew you woould get one and I am happy for you. Which one did you get?

Your photo has really good detail, nice and sharp but balanced well with the exposure.

Now you have your tripod I look forward to seeing you very early in the mornings on the weekds capturing the light!

Paul

Hehe, I sure did um and ah over the tripod. I got the KB-2 head because I like the feel of it (not that I know anything) and I figured you can't beat a big ball. I got the A327 legs as Birddog recommended and it's aluminium. The bit of extra weight doesn't bother me one bit.

The early morning photos shouldn't be too far away now.

Exposure is perfect Doug, great work! Might want to correct for the distortion a bit if you can, get those skyscraper sides vertical? That's the only thing I can find though, otherwise it's superb!

Thanks MCWB for your comment. I tried correcting the distortion of the buildings, you can see the left most building I could straighten. But the next on in didn't straighten as much. Do you have any tips of how to straighten it, without affecting the one on the left? In my other post I found I could easily straighten the buildings on the left and right (and the bridge pylons too), but not those nearer the middle. I don't know how to correct those.

Excellent result, Doug.

Really great shot, Doug, timing is perfect.


Bob.

Thanks Leigh and Bob for your comments.

I like this shot. Yes it is a post card shot, but if I were visiting Sydney and was looking for a post card to send back home - I'd buy it! Everyone knows that there is a bridge and an opera house but it is nice to see some other places as well.
The composition and lighting do it for me. It would be nice to have upright buildings however. (although I don't think it detracts from the shot that much) How do you correct this? Is there an easy way to do that sort of thing in photoshop?

edit - I wish I could spell!

Hi meerkat, thanks for your kind comment.

The way I straighten is to press ctrl+A in Photoshop to select all, then go to Edit>Transform>Distort and drag the point at the top corners outwards. This straightens the things near the ends of the photos more than what's in the middle. I'm not sure how to straighten the inner building. It looks like it has a bow in it, and maybe even a twist.

I need to take note of my focal length, I think. I usually use the kit lens for this sort of photo and haven't had distortion problems before. At least nothing that couldn't be easily corrected. Maybe I was shooting at a not-so-good focal length for this lens? I think it needs some experimentation.

Here's Thom's take on correcting distortion. I'm no PS guru though, someone else might be able to suggest a better way?

Thanks for the tips guys - much appreciated.

Thanks for the link. I'll work my way through those steps later today. When I've tried that method before, I kept putting MORE bends in the buidings. Some proper instruction of the lens distortion tool should help.

Also have a look at DxO optics Pro software which is designed to correct these things with custom settings for each lens. It used to be terribly expensive since you had to buy the plugin for each lens separately. Now the price is all inclusive.