Summer Aurora

Critiques [Translate]

•  
• Apex (314)
• [2006-10-31 15:14]

Hey Mel.
Great pic. The emerald sky you've captured is quite unique. Nice work.

-Jeff

•  
• AdrianW (2193)
• [2006-10-31 15:22]
• [9]

Nice shot! You've captured this aurora well, I particularly like vivid colours and the way the clouds break up the scene - and the tents in the foreground add that extra layer to your composition. You're right though, unfortunately it's not sharp.

My tips:

First, make sure the tripod is solid - lock it tight, and flick the camera. Does the camera wobble? If so, get a new tripod ;)

Get a remote release for the camera. This will prevent wobble as you won't be pressing the button on the camera. Make sure you leave some slack in the cable (if it's cable based) and that the cable doesn't rest on the camera/tripod.

Use self timer if available - check your manual. That allows you a countdown to firing, use it - obviously if you don't touch anything, you can't shake it either ;)

If the camera has it, use mirror lockup and lift the mirror before exposure. Not sure whether the D50 does - again check your manual on this.

Focus. Most modern lenses have an infinity mark that's actually beyond infinity. Manually focussing in low light with a wideangle lens is difficult - no question. If the lens design is "parfocal", i.e. one that maintains the same point of focus throughout the zoom range, focus when you're zoomed to the most telephoto end - it's easier to see what's happening that way :) Check nikonians.org or perhaps the lens specifications, i'm sure one or the other will tell you...

Aperture. If you can, shoot around f/8-f/11, it'll be the sharpest your lens is capable of - and as an added bonus you'll have far greater depth of field at your disposal, which makes focus less critical.

Finally, you've used way too much JPEG compression - which has increased the softness quite a bit anyway. You have a maximum of 200kb to use, but you've only used 11kb! Try and save closer to the maximum.

Hope that helps!

•  
• elkab (1283)
• [2006-10-31 15:25]

Hello!
Thanks for sharred! Romantic and beautiful picture, full of silence and mystery. The effect of long shutterspeed in unexpectedly fine
regards
eb

•  
• Glint (1898)
• [2006-10-31 15:29]

hello mel,
this is really something special, magial even. I don't thinkit matters a jot about the foreground sharpness (or lack of it). Great composition with most of the frame given over to the wonderful greeny sky and the illuminated tent at the bottom.
well done
Bev

•  
• stefanocer (7452)
• [2006-10-31 17:00]

The sky colours are just fantastic try to increase sharpness .
Stefano.

•  
• AdrienneClaire (704)
• [2007-02-22 21:18]

Beautiful green lights captured. Nice composition with the tents. Too bad about the trees being a bit blurry, but it works still due to the subject.

•  
• KoCHELLy (74)
• [2007-10-22 11:17]

very beautiful...very nice...

•  
• vasyL (53)
• [2008-01-17 15:44]

MEL!

this photo is awesome!

well done.

you are lucky to have seen it!

cheers,
w

•  
• kwazireal (168)
• [2008-02-11 3:33]
• - [workshop] [compare]

Nice shot.

Image file size is significantly too small, image details blurred by camera shake.

Please see WS for demo of a sharpening technique. If you still have the original large file, you may try this on it.

Additional suggestion: hang your camera bag on your tripod for extra weight and stability. I strongly recommend using the 2-second self-timer shutter release feature for long exposures.

•  
• veranita (12)
• [2008-02-11 3:44]

hi mel....
you are lucky person can watch the aurora with your own eye, you are capturing great moment which not very often we can see even on TE , unfortunately the picture is a bit blurry , else
is just perfect, thx for sharing it with us , good luck for next time, i hope you will get a better picture to try .. good advice Adrian , it is very useful for all of us .