Hi Charles,
Thanks for submitting another assignment. Your account should be fixed and everything should be working.
If not please email office@photographyicon.com to get it fixed up.
Now onto the critique.
Here is the exif data for this image.
http://photographyicon.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/2X8C1391.jpg
Date Time Original: 2014:07:12 23:12:00
Exposure Time: 89
F Number: f / 8
ISO Speed Ratings: 50
Metering Mode: Pattern
Flash: Flash did not fire, compulsory flash mode
Focal Length: 24mm
White Balance: Manual white balance
Make: Canon
Model: Canon EOS 5D Mark III
LensInfo: 24/1 24/1 0/0 0/0
LensModel: EF24mm f/1.4L II USM
LensSerialNumber: 0000409158
Lens: EF24mm f/1.4L II USM
Exif Version:
Color Space: 65535
Pixel X Dimension: 5052
Pixel Y Dimension: 2136
Date Time Digitized: 2014:07:12 23:12:00
Subsec Time: 06
Subsec Time Original: 06
Subsec Time Digitized: 06
Shutter Speed Value: -6.48
Aperture Value: 6
Max Aperture Value: 1
Focal Plane X Resolution: 160
Focal Plane Y Resolution: 160
Focal Plane Resolution Unit: 4
Custom Rendered: Normal process
Scene Capture Type: Standard
Saturation: Normal
ExifIFDPointer: 220
Orientation: 1
X Resolution: 240
Y Resolution: 240
Resolution Unit: 2
Date Time: 2014:07:13 19:32:02
Software: Adobe Photoshop CS6 (Macintosh)
DateCreated: 2014-07-12T23:12:00.006
You’ve done a really nice job here on quite a few things. You’ve shot at an interesting time of day, you’ve used some good camera settings and achieved an interesting image. Experimentation is great! Just be ready for experimentation to produce some odd results. For instance look at the chromatic aberration going on here.
The colors feel just a bit too unrealistic as well but that’s totally ok. There is no rule saying everything has to look like reality.
One thing to note here is that you’ve lost all detail in all of the dark areas. The entire lower left corner of the frame is blacked out. I can see that you wanted to include the light trails from the cars passing by but I would suggest a potentially more interesting image would be a closer image of those buildings. (attached) Alternatively you’d need some detail in those dark areas.
The key here is that you’ve tried using a filter, in this case a piece of plastic that produced some interesting results. So good job here. I would advise that you buy a proper ND filter. Your local camera store may have some pre-owned NDs or even check online for some good deals. For the most part ND filters are very very useful for images like this.
Nice job here, just remember filters can be very very useful so I highly recommend playing around with them more.
See you on the next assignment.
Thanks