Hi all,
just a few days ago I created a gallery with night shots taken in the old medieval core of my hometown Deventer, in the Netherlands.
Although it is not very difficult to take reasonable pictures (given that you use a tripod), the processing raises technical and artistic questions:
1) Most areas have natural light (moon) as well as tungsten and halogen light. Even when shooting with WB set on tungsten the result is pictures with very warm tones. Although the actual light that one experiences when walking these streets is quite warm, the pictures tend to get a heavy yellowish teint. I experimented with different color temperature adjustments in PS, but am still unconvinced which is best.
2) The historic core has standard lanterns but also special light beams to expose historic buildings. This produces quite strong contrasts between light and dark areas. In some case I have tried to get some detail in the darker areas (especially the nice brickwork walls) using a fair amount shadow/highlight adjustment in PS. This however creates some noise and some might deem the resultst also unrealistic.
I very much like to hear your thoughts on these issues. Please examine the pictures below, or better even the originals in my Deventer night shots gallery (You can also click the images to see the originals)
Your comments are very welcome (here or with the pictures themselves)
Kind regards,
Jeroen
Corrected to 3300 Kelvin, is this one still too warm?
Almost white out on the church, buildings on the left too dark? (4095 Kelvin, brightness taken down: -0,50)
Color temperature set to 4095 Kelvin (average tungsten) and a fair amount of shadow/highlight adjustment (15%) on this one, does it take away some of the atmosphere?
Again, I took the Kelvin down quite a bit and again a lot (35%) of shadow/highlight adjustment. The result is noise. Does that distract too much?