Lesson 4 Assignment

[melissa tate]

For this assignment, I chose to use an ND 10-stop filter and to do a long exposure of a classic Zurich cityscape. Looking forward to your comments.

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[Duncan Rawlinson]

Hi Melissa,

Thanks for sending in another assignment.

Right off the bat I can tell your photo looks good and is quite strong technically.

Let’s look at the EXIF data on the image:

Date Time Original: 2014:05:09 23:07:40
Exposure Time: 20
F Number: f / 13
Exposure Program: Manual
ISO Speed Ratings: 100
Metering Mode: Pattern
Flash: Flash did not fire
Focal Length: 16mm
White Balance: Manual white balance
Make: NIKON CORPORATION
Model: NIKON D90
LensInfo: 110/10 160/10 28/10 28/10
LensModel: 11.0-16.0 mm f/2.8
Lens: 11.0-16.0 mm f/2.8
Exif Version:
Date Time Digitized: 2014:05:09 23:07:40
Subsec Time Original: 00
Subsec Time Digitized: 00
Shutter Speed Value: -4.32
Aperture Value: 7.40
Max Aperture Value: 3
Light Source: Unknown
Sensing Method: One-chip color area sensor
File Source: DSC
Scene Type: Directly photographed
CFA Pattern: 738
Custom Rendered: Normal process
Exposure Mode: 1
Digital Zoom Ration: 1
Focal Length In 35mm Film: 24mm
Scene Capture Type: Standard
Gain Control: None
Contrast: Normal
Saturation: Normal
Sharpness: Normal
Subject Distance Range: Unknown
ExifIFDPointer: 216
X Resolution: 240
Y Resolution: 240
Resolution Unit: 2
Date Time: 2014:05:10 15:43:33
Software: Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 5.4 (Macintosh)
DateCreated: 2014-05-09T23:07:40.00

I see that you’ve used a 20 second exposure at f13 at ISO 100 and manually white balanced your camera. All of this is fantastic and you’ve certainly shot a very nice image here. Not only was your choice of filter a great choice but you’ve used it in a perfect way, to shoot a long exposure landscape photograph. In other words you’ve understood the assignment and done very very very well here!

I would advise you to keep shooting with this filter heavily and combine this filter with your knowledge of lesson 3 in terms of motion etc.

I have have a few minor notes on this image. In particular are the composition of the image is worth talking about. I’m not sure quite how to put my finger on it but it feels like the image is either crooked and the horizon line is slanted or it’s something else. I think what it may be is that everything on the left of the frame feels like it’s nice and vertical and line up whereas the right side of the frame feels like its slanting over.

This may be a lens distortion issue. Under develop module in lightroom take a look at the lens corrections section. Notice you can do lens profile corrections and etc etc. It may be as simple as levelling the image and doing some lens corrections for a quick fix. It may just be that the image could have been composed in a nicer way. Obviously once we’ve gotten to this level we’re into the realm of the subjective and if the composition of this image feels right to you, than that’s great. But to me something just feels off about it.

If you are going to shoot more images like this I’d recommend planning them in advance. In other words, choose a time of day (and of year) to take them. A hand tool for this is the photographers ephemeris. This tool allows you to know exactly where the sun/moon will be at any given date and time. http://photoephemeris.com/

In this way you can pre-plan a shot like this to maximize the quality of light or get the look you want.

Otherwise the image is very beautiful and I’m very happy to see you doing so well!

Nice work here!

[Author]

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