Night-time building photo advice

[Big Kev]

I might have to get some nice moody night shots of the building I work in to go on our website.

The boss wants things along the lines of the one I've linked below.

The colours are nice and rich in shots like this that I see all the time online but I have no experience of taking them. Am I right in thinking it's actually quite a long exposure (maybe 30s) to really pull out the light from the darker areas rather than a higher iso, big aperture, short exposure shot? The light sparkles left of centre and the fountain are a bit of a give away for my thinking there. So I'm thinking a middling to small aperture (F16), low ISO (200) and 30-60secs? Am I in the right ballpark?

[mole2k]

I would say your in the right ballpark with those, I would probably be taking several exposures to blend together too so you can further expand the dynamic range and flatten the natural contrast!

[DexterPunk]

I would also say that's about right. Keep your ISO as low as possible for a cleaner image. You might be surprised how late you need to shoot to get the contrast relatively even. So keep going until it's pretty much dark. Hopefully you're not shooting towards the west where the sun will be setting, it makes it a bit harder to control contrast. Doing something like Mole mentioned would be needed. Look into bracketing, and setup your camera to do that.

Most modern cameras will have the dynamic range to pull that kind of scene out of one image though (depending on the conditions). Mole needs to upgrade! :P if you need help with the editing side of things (which will likely be needing a bit of work) hit me up on Facebook and I can help you out.

[mole2k]

Wait the 20D's not modern anymore? I only bought it 9 years ago?

[Big Kev]

Thanks guys. I'll give it a shot when I get the chance.
Shooting South/South West Dex. Might give me a nice glow over the roof.

I've got an option to try this next wednesday as my work schedule will be done by 4 and sunset is 5.10 so the building will still be lit up inside and I might even get some car trails from the car park opposite.

[Big Kev]

Nothing on TV tonight so I popped out to work to give this a quick tester.

Not many lights on as it was nearly 7pm on a saturday but it was an interesting test.

I tried a base photo of 30s F13 ISO100 which gave me pretty good light to the unlit parts without blowing the windows out too much. Then I did another at F22 to give a bit less light on the windows.

Then in photoshop I just did a really quick and nasty mask to paint in the windows from the darker version.

I also happened to get a car on both pictures so thought I'd stick the light trails in to see how it looked.

Not too bad I think for a basic first try (I know I haven't cropped out the railing)

[Big Kev]

Did it properly tonight.

I stood taking pictures for about 90 minutes while it got darker..... until hospital security turned up and told me to stop!!!
Apparently I needed a permit to photograph on site and someone who didn't know me in the building (99% of people do!) called them because 'someone' was photographing people as they left the building. oops

They were ok about it once they found out who I was and my seemingly out of date swipe card opened the main door! And luckily they didn't (or more likely couldn't) confiscate or make me delete the pictures from the memory card.

Anyway, this is a composite of about 10 pictures.
One for the sky while it was looking quite blue despite being thick cloud, one for the windows and a few car and bike trails of people leaving or arriving to pick people up. I might chop out some of the cars on the final version.

[DexterPunk]

Looks much better Kev. I'd try and get the exposure up a bit on the building facade. Much better in the second pic though. I was meaning to post in this thread the other day and must have forgotten. I was going to say the sky needed a bit more, which you fixed in the next shot.

[Big Kev]

I can fix the exposure with a little photoshoppery.

[Big Kev]

Little bit more editing, tidied up some quick and nasty masking I'd done, some stray lights here and there and cropped a bit off the bottom and ended up with.....

WIMMatnight20151024 by pumazooma, on Flickr

[ysu]

(coming from a complete amateur)
I like the 1st one the best. It looks more like a proper night-shot, really dark sky & those tell-tale blue-ish tinted lights at the office.
Also all the buildings around have dark windows, that shows like it's really late and draws attention to your building - there's still someone working there!

[Shonky]

Looks pretty good to me Kev, if I had to be picky, I'd say my eye tends to be more drawn to the tree in the foreground left than to the building, and somewhere between the last and 2nd last pic the sharpness of the building dropped off a bit.

[DexterPunk]

While photography is completely subjective... I disagree with ysu.

[Big Kev]

and somewhere between the last and 2nd last pic the sharpness of the building dropped off a bit.

I've since re-exported it. I think the compression down from 5000px to 1024 didn't go well when I did that version (you can see pixellation in the diagonals).

I've entered it in a competition
The organisation that look after the hospital and scientific sites in Oxford are having a compo of scientific and non-scientific images to show what the organisation is about. For the 'non' category they asked for buildings, equipment and stuff like that so I entered this pic and one of my laser ones.

[ysu]

While photography is completely subjective... I disagree with ysu.

It'd be an utter surprise if everyone would like the same I've the biggest disagreements with my business partners over designs.

[DexterPunk]

I can imagine! :P

[Big Kev]

I've entered it in a competition
The organisation that look after the hospital and scientific sites in Oxford are having a compo of scientific and non-scientific images to show what the organisation is about. For the 'non' category they asked for buildings, equipment and stuff like that so I entered this pic and one of my laser ones.

Well, I entered my night time shot in the competition at work but ended up coming second with my laser shot!

http://www.rdm.ox.ac.uk/image-competition

[DexterPunk]

Love the confocal stack image.

I can't see 2nd and 3rd because of location apparently

[Big Kev]

That's a bit annoying.

2nd and 3rd in the scientific category




2nd (me!!) and 3rd in the non-scientific category

[Big Kev]

Should be accessible now. They had the page hidden while they made it and forgot to change the permissions