Our House in Snow Photo

Photographer’s Note

An early experinment (for me) in night digital photography. This camera had no manual controls except over/underexposure, hence the out of focus snowflakes in the air. The sky really was that color, because of the streetlights downtown.
Crop, USM.
Have any suggestions on handling the noise in the sky and snow?

Several folks have given good advice on this photo. Thank you to BobTrips for the essay. I will try his flash management suggestions when it snows again, I hope that is a couple years away:)

travelyurt has marked this note useful

Critiques | Translate

Porteplume (3257) 2003-08-05 12:50

Oh, what a beautiful house you have the privilege to live in John. So there, on that porch, your wife and you often go to watch sunsets?

Great image! It could make, after correcting a slight tilt to the right & cropping the dark spots on the street, a fantastic X-mas Greetings card! Well done...

ninadev (5225) 2003-08-05 12:54

Lovely house and the sky has a great color. The problem with the noise in the sky can be corrected with NeatImage - free version available on the web, easy to use and has a tutorial. I tried to process it myself and send you a Worshop but your image has only 5.6 KB and too small to work with. Maybe if it wasn't compressed that much the noise wouldn't show. Try to save and post nearer to 200 kb that you can for a better result.

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Didi (36452) 2003-08-05 14:09

Les nuages plus l'éclairage au sodium de la ville donne ces couleurs particulières.
Joli photo avec ces belles décorations de fêtes.

The clouds plus lighting with the sodium of the city gives these particular colors. Pretty photograph with these beautiful decorations of Christmas.
Please have a look into the WS

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PLD_images (7141) 2003-08-05 19:40

Nice picture. It has a lot of ambiance. Very original.

BobTrips (1853) 2003-08-06 11:52

I think that this a picture well worth another try. (And living where you do, you won't have to wait too long.)

I would highly recommend not using the on-camera flash. It gave you the wildly distorted snowflakes. You will see the same problem when you shoot through a lot of dust with a flash closely mounted to the camera lens. (Red eye = same reason.)

The flash is not going to illuminate the house. You're just too far away for that to happen. The flash is just serving to light the snowflakes.

Either use a separate flash positioned some distance from the camera or use a stationary light(s). Try some shots without flash/lights. There might be enough ambient light to make the snowflakes show up.

If you could come up with enough extra light you could cut down on the shutter speed and reduce the 'blow out' on the Christmas lights. (You would get a sharper, more defined light shape.)

When you take the shot also take a few shots of the blank sky using the same camera settings. Then you can use a section of the sky to create a noise profile in Neat Image to clean the real shot.

I'd also work on some other camera positions. Try moving more to the front of the house, straighten.

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orme (6746) 2003-09-10 22:04

A really beautiful scene. Even with all the snow, the picture has a very warm feel to it.

htremblay (1664) 2003-11-13 11:41

J'aime l'ambiance de cette photo, bien réussie. Bravo.
I like the atmosphere of this photo, made a success well. Bravo.

cloverstar (0) 2004-03-22 9:54

I think this turned out pretty good for your first try. I tried taking a shot of my house many years ago using my SLR Pentax, and had to use a tripod and F stop on Brief, with an exposure time of about 2 minutes without a flash. A full frontal view would be nice, so as to capture the welcoming feel of the front door. Very good try.