Nelson Mandela Bridge at night

[Tobie Schalkwyk]

Nelson Mandela Bridge (JHB, SA) at night. Time delayed to capture the light streaks from cars crossing the bridge (above) whilst a train was crossing below. I have a few pics in this series and might post another depending on feedback on this one. Taken from an outside patio on the 21st floor of a club venue.

Shadows raised in LR and cropped to remove a building in the FG in the lower left corner.

D7000
Nikkor 18-55mm kit lens @ 55mm (82mm FFE)
f/22 | 15 sec | ISO 200

[Don Railton]

Hi Tobie

I like the composition and the colour on the bridge. Lots of interest in the mid and forground. It does look however that you have had to lift the shadows quite a way as the sky is brown and there is quite a lot of noise, especially in the sky... This is possibly because it was underexposed?? You have a light streak from an aircraft top RHS you might have missed.

regards

DON

[Tobie Schalkwyk]

It does look however that you have had to lift the shadows quite a way as the sky is brown and there is quite a lot of noise, especially in the sky... This is possibly because it was underexposed?? You have a light streak from an aircraft top RHS you might have missed.

Don, thanks for your comment. Exposure was a little tricky due to a very dark train shunting yard in the FG (as you can see - no lights there) and the bright lights from the city. I thus opted to not over expose the bright lights too much and then raise the shadows quite some. The 'brown' (rather yellow-ish) sky is very much what JHB looks like at night, brought about by all the city lights (against our dusty / smokey mid winter skies). There definitely is a bit of noise in the sky but I'll write that off to the D7000's handling of dark scenes (one of the reasons I've upgraded to FF a few months later). I probably could have gone for ISO 100 but I reckon the improvement on ISO 200 would have been minimal.

I haven't even seen the plane streak - well spotted! A pity it's not much longer!

You actually made me think - At the time of this photo I was still brand new to DSLR photography and thus stayed away from PP as far as possible. I might just grab this photo and process it from the original RAW file and see what I come up with when applying my PP skills gained in the 11 months thereafter (e.g. easy now to fix up the noise in the sky, etc.). Thanks for your input!

[Don Railton]

Hi Tobie

Would have been a good candidate for blending two shots at different exposures. Easy to say now. An option you might try now is to double process it and blend both. Process on for the darks and use a bit of NR, process another for the lights. Drop both images into the same file, align them and then erase back the bits of each you don't want. Use a luminosity mask if you like...


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

[Kaushik Balakumar]

The frame is composed well. Liked the colours on the bridge amidst the overall yellows.
Might darken the sky and increase the contrasts in the buildings.

[Andrew McLachlan]

Hi Tobie, I like the comp and the bridge looks great. I too noticed the high level of noise present in the shadowed areas you lifted. I agree with your thought process on going back to the RAW file and rework the image now that you have refined your PP skills...look forward to repost!