# Help With A Shot Please



## smoke665 (Dec 10, 2016)

I have a dark brown wood and stone building with exterior Christmas lights, sitting on top of a hill. I'm trying to capture the look of a night scene, with the lights, and the night sky/stars visible overhead. With a 3/4 profile of the building I have about a 60' DOF to deal with. However as the lights are mostly on one end and only partway down the side, I may be able to shorten that some. I have close to 200 yards of open field in front of the building to shoot from. Lights are small constant on white, that emit star points. This  first attempt was around 8 pm, 5 step composite 28 mm (2 stops +/- F/8.0), ISO 200 at 30 secs. I'd like to get more detail on the lights (less blow out), and a lighter sky.  Suggestions please on how to shoot this?  Time of day, ISO, composite, anything???? I'm open to try any and all.


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## snowbear (Dec 10, 2016)

Other than spot metering on the lights then the background trees, I'm not sure.  I'm sure you can pull the sky up in post.


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## greybeard (Dec 10, 2016)

Set to ISO 100, this should let you bring out more shadow detail.  Like Snowbear wrote, "spot meter on the lights"  (expose for highlights) then bring up the shadows in post processing.  Once something is "blown out" there is nothing you can do with it.  Same thing goes for absolute black, if the sensor records a (0) then no details can be brought out of it.  This isn't gospel or anything like that, it is just what has worked for me in the past.  Your results may vary.


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## smoke665 (Dec 10, 2016)

snowbear said:


> I'm sure you can pull the sky up in post.



Using Luminosity Masks, I was able to pull up the sky and trees. Discovered that part of the problem seems to be  difference in the WB of the shadows, highlight and sky. By adjusting that individually I was able to bring the color back in the sky and shadows. I still need to shoot over, to be sure I don't blow as much of the lights, and possibly expand the number of shots.



greybeard said:


> Set to ISO 100, this should let you bring out more shadow detail.



I'd love to but I was already at 30 secs at ISO 200, and was concerned that opening the aperture further would decrease the DOF I was looking for.[/QUOTE]


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## snowbear (Dec 10, 2016)

Do you have a graduated ND?


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## smoke665 (Dec 10, 2016)

snowbear said:


> Do you have a graduated ND?



Well duh, you mean you can use them upside down??? LOL Never even thought of that. Terrible when you get old and set in your ways. I've got several, I'll try it.


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## astroNikon (Dec 10, 2016)

snowbear said:


> Do you have a graduated ND?


I was going to recommend this.
The Square ones are really handy for work during the day and night time then you can set the "mid line" where you want it  .. depending upon the type soft/hard GNDs you have.


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## snowbear (Dec 10, 2016)

Can't wait to see the result.


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## smoke665 (Dec 10, 2016)

Here's the result of playing around with what I already had. Still believe I need to reshoot to get better detail on the lights.


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## snowbear (Dec 10, 2016)

I like the second shot.


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## greybeard (Dec 11, 2016)

snowbear said:


> I like the second shot.


Me too


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## Drive-By-Shooter (Dec 11, 2016)

better, but not where you want it to be.  right?
that's a lot of latitude; bright lights to stars.
[i'm surprised no one said, "dim the lights"]

perfect time to learn HDR.  this is what HDR is for.
can your camera do it?  get out the book.
if not, there are lots of apps: Top 20 Best HDR Software Review 2016
I use corel because i have used it for years, long before going digital two years ago.

scroll to slide 13 to see how in camera HDR works.
post-processing-23may16.key.pdf


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## smoke665 (Dec 11, 2016)

Drive-By-Shooter said:


> perfect time to learn HDR. this is what HDR is



See first post this is a 5 shot composite individually adjusted then blended in PS using a neutral HDR action. I've used in camera HDR but prefere composing post. I've used Corel (still have X8). Switched to Adobe because of the expanded features.



Drive-By-Shooter said:


> better, but not where you want it to be. right?
> that's a lot of latitude; bright lights to stars.
> [i'm surprised no one said, "dim the lights"]



Yes it is. Last night I tried changing the white balance to Tungsten which helped the lights but killed the house and sky. Also tried a graduated filter but haven't had time to process. your suggestion to "dim the lights" might be an option.


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## Drive-By-Shooter (Dec 11, 2016)

sorry, did not notice that it was a "composite".
dimming lights may not be possible since they are LED.  oops, again.
Why not try a longer exposure with the stars?


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## smoke665 (Dec 11, 2016)

Drive-By-Shooter said:


> sorry, did not notice that it was a "composite".
> dimming lights may not be possible since they are LED.  oops, again.
> Why not try a longer exposure with the stars?



Following your suggestion on using in camera HDR I went back to the manual to check something, and found this interesting note. "Using HDR and Auto Align, causes the sensitivity ISO to switch to actively increases sensitivity automatically". Not sure if other manufacturer's do this but it could be an issue.

Actually lights are not LED's so I may be able to use a plug in dimmer, going to check that out.


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## Peeb (Dec 11, 2016)

Hope you get it the way you want eventually, but it looks pretty spectacular to me already.


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## adamhiram (Dec 11, 2016)

I try to shoot holiday lights around dusk so that the house is still illuminated and the holiday lights aren't overpowering, although that won't capture the night sky.  Perhaps try shooting the house and lights at dusk, then leave the tripod setup a while and come back and take the night time shots, exposed for the stars, and composite later?


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## smoke665 (Dec 11, 2016)

snowbear said:


> I like the second shot.





greybeard said:


> Me too





Peeb said:


> it looks pretty spectacular to me alread



Thanks all, with this final edit I think I'll back off of it for awhile, as it's becoming a little frustrating, reaching a point where more work equals less improvement. I'm still loosing the very center of the lights but everything I've tried so far hasn't worked any better. I was able to work on the existing sky and stars, to bring them out more, then added the North Star (sorry if it's cheesy call it aesthetic interpretation).  May try it again when I get to the store and get a couple of dimmers.


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## Drive-By-Shooter (Dec 11, 2016)

wow!  very nice.


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## smoke665 (Dec 11, 2016)

Drive-By-Shooter said:


> wow!  very nice.



Thank you


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## snowbear (Dec 11, 2016)

At least, in the end, you had fun with it.


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## Drive-By-Shooter (Dec 11, 2016)

student/teacher both learn.  i learned why HDR in the camera has a big advantage due to the different sensitivity of the pixels.  
great forum.  i've seen lots of good advice in the short time i've visited.


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## photo1x1.com (Dec 16, 2016)

Great image, I don´t like the artificial look of the sky though.
I once faced a similar problem. If this is your house (or you have a key for it  ). You can do the same approach I did (especially if you have an assistant):
There might not even be a need for HDR, or even photoshop. Keep the exposure the same as you had, and then you go and turn off the lights after e.g. 15 seconds (or 20sec. or whatever you like best). If you have somebody to do that for you, you can use your phone to give instructions rather than shout out loud  or maybe you have an app you can use to remotely control your camera?. That way you can exactly adjust the brightness of the light to the stars in the back. If you want the foreground to be lit like in the final edit, you just take two exposures - one with brighter lights to light the foreground and then you mask the layers in photoshop with a very soft brush.
Did you use a flash? In the final edit it looks as if there is some light comming from the camera. To avoid that direct light look, you could set the flash to a lower power setting, walk around during the 30sec and fire the flash from various positions. And cover it with an orange filter (it looks slightly cooler) - or adjust it later in lightroom using local adjustments.
In regard to your 30sec limit mentioned above - consider using bulb and some kind of cable or wireless release to not touch the camera during the image is taken.
EDIT: bulb wouldn´t be that good of an idea because that would introduce star trails


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## smoke665 (Dec 17, 2016)

@photo1x1.com  The only thing I didn't try was dimming the lights or turning them off as you suggested. I suspect that would have helped, but I reached a point where I was  ready to move on, maybe one day I'll try again.  The final image was a 5 shot composite merged as an HDR in PS. The sky was not altered except to clone out the star trails. The stars were then sharpened and dotted with a white circular brush, and the North Star added. The fill light on the front and side of the house is from the moon which was behind/above me.  The other thing I've been experimenting with is an HDR composed of Pixel Shift images, but I really need a faster processor and more ram for that.



Drive-By-Shooter said:


> i learned why HDR in the camera has a big advantage due to the different sensitivity of the pixels.



Thank you for the comments. Again, I'm not sure if my earlier comments on "auto selection" of ISO  on in camera HDR applies to other manufacturers.  I'm also not sure that it's an advantage, if it increases the ISO to a point where noise becomes an issue. At least with my model, I've found that HDR composed post, were superior to those created in camera. 



snowbear said:


> At least, in the end, you had fun with it



When did "Obsessions" become fun???? LOL All kidding aside it was a great learning experience.


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## snowbear (Dec 17, 2016)

smoke665 said:


> When did "Obsessions" become fun???? LOL All kidding aside it was a great learning experience.


Better than cleaning bathrooms, right?


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