Photos

lennarts (547) 2007-01-11 11:22

Hello Richard,
Your note is good explaining the difficulties of taking this shot. I'm not an expert myself but I like constructive critique and to learn about things, so instead of saying "nice photo" I will share my thoughts on how things could have perhaps been better :)

First of all, let me say I don't think a helicopter would have helped here - helicopter moves even more than a hand holding a camera, let alone the tripod.
I see you had a tripod and I am surprised, because the result is till a bit blurry. Well, 13 seconds of exposure time is a long time and if the tripod is not steady enough the wind, or you holding on to tripod :) can still ruin it.

Your photo is quite heavily tilted CCW - about 2-3 degrees is my estimate.

The central building (Old Capitol, I guess?) is too dark. Well, was a difficult situation to solve. As you have cars on the left coming towards you with their headlights on as well as streetlights, it's either having something overexposed or something underexposed. Or both. Combining multiple shots with different EV settings in Postprocceing would probably be the best solution. But if you did not take these multiple exposure shots then now it is too late. Still, even playing around with levels or using the Shadow/highlight tool in Photoshop can improve your photo a lot.