Digital photography

[Snapper]

Are you feeling brave enough to post one or two of the photos? We might be able to work out what the camera was doing.

Point and shoots can often get confused over what they are trying flash at.

If they are trying to flash at something way in the distance they might end up over-exposing and washing out anything close. Closer things would usually be at the bottom of the frame.

What they do other times is to expose for the near subject and leave everything else quite dark.

If there's a big difference in light levels across the whole picture it could be that the camera is having trouble getting a balanced exposure.

[search66]

I'll post some pictures tonight. Thanks.

[ORLANDO_MAGIC]

I have an Olympus mju400 digital,and though it takes some good night photos such as the one below i still have major problems with photos that contain things such as lamp lights and car headlights that always turn out blurry,as the 2nd photo below shows.









John[8D]

[Nostromo]

Great Pics John. The slight blur is OK because it gives the feel of 'movement' on the strip. What was your vantage point?

[ORLANDO_MAGIC]

I took that photo from the Eiffel Tower observation tower looking Southward as you can no doubt tell.

The photo below is looking Northwards,and the picture below that was looking West towards the Bellagio.

I lost a little quality as i had to resize and reduce the file size to get them uploaded here.

[Nostromo]

Is the big building 'behind' (ie to the north of) Venetian in this pic the new Wynn Las Vegas? And was it blocking your view of Stratosphere from where you stood because of the curve of the strip?

[ORLANDO_MAGIC]

<blockquote id="quote" class="ffs">quote:Originally posted by Nostromo
Is the big building 'behind' (ie to the north of) Venetian in this pic the new Wynn Las Vegas? And was it blocking your view of Stratosphere from where you stood because of the curve of the strip?
[/quote]

That photo was taken in February of last year and here is a pic from the opposite direction taken from the Stratosphere tower.
You can just make out the Wynn hotel in the middle of the picture.
It was still only half completed and still not lit up.
Its the dark brown building and yes it does seem to block out the Paris hotel and tower.
But still one of the best places to view the strip.
I just cant seem to get clear pictures with this camera though im sure Snapper would with his camera and knowledge.

[Snapper]

I think what you are seeing John is one of the limitations of photography vs. the human eye. That might sound like a bit of a cop out of an explanation but bear with me.

If you look at the night photos you have an incredible range of light, from pitch darkness through to extremely bright neon. The camera is trying to make a decision as to how much light to allow in so that it keeps the pure blacks only just black, and the pure whites only just white. This is extremely tough for night shots as you really are dealing with the whole range from pitch black to pure white, and most cameras (even hugely expensive ones) can be a bit hit-and-miss when it comes to making this decision. If they go too dark it means that you get larger dark bits where all the detail has been lost and is all just black. You sometimes see this on daytime shots where you lose a bit of detail in the shadows if they become pure black. At the other end, if the camera allows in even just a bit too much light the exact opposite happens and the highlights (bright bits) get burned in and you lose the detail in them. They kind of burn out to a pure white, and you lose the intricate details. Your first photo of Bellagio is a good one to use for an example. If you look at the very top of the tower in the middle of the hotel you can just see the lights starting to burn in and lose detail. The flip side is that the shot has some lovely reflections and textures in the lake.

There are a couple of ways to play around with this. If you set the camera to under-expose (it might be called exposure compensation on one of the menus) it will darken the darks and also darken the lights. You can save some of the detail in the lights, but at the cost of losing a bit in the darks. Any settings around -0.5 EV to -1.5 EV are worth trying.

Similary, if the shot looks too dark, try going +0.5 EV to +1.5 EV or something in between. This will make the lights lighter, but also at the cost of making the darks lighter as well. A bit like the early version of Persil automatic.

There is a technique called bracketing, which used to be hugely important in the world of film, especially for night shots, where you would do a sequence of shots some darker and some lighter. The theory being that if you did 5 you would be more likely to get one that was spot on. The ability to preview with digital helps this enormously. The Nikon has a feature that I absolutely love to bits, in that when it pops the image up for a preview it will highlight with a flashing colour any areas of the shot that is burned out. It makes it easier to just pick a small correction (-0.3 EV or -0.5 EV or whatever) and re-shoot it hoping to get everything as close as possible.

I had exactly the same problem with Bellagio when I was over in Las Vegas last November so I'll try to dig out a couple of shots that might help show what all this waffle is trying to say.

[Snapper]

Here's about the best example I can find John. Same subject (Bellagio), same lighting (all artifical), darker photo.

It keeps the detail visible in the really light bit at the top of the hotel (you can still read Bellagio) BUT this is at the expense of the hotel appearing darker and also losing some of the lovely reflections in the water. My water is quite dark and boring by comparison to yours.

It's a real compromise with no real right and wrong answers. The best tip is to try a whole bunch of photos and see which works best.

[Snapper]

BTW John, I think the people who build hotels in Las Vegas do this on purpose. The town is both a photographer's dream and a photographer's nightmare both at the same time. It's scortched of all colour during the day and by night there is so much light flying around everywhere that it presents more problems than it solves.