Some Newbie Christmas Shots

[fWord]

Maybe it's just me, but the Christmas lightups these days don't seem as impressive as those that some of us might have seen in the past. Back in those days, the display was truly stunning, and there was a definite sense of competition amongst all the centers along Orchard Road. They almost seemed to be trying to outdo each other.

Anyway, here are some absolute newbie shots that I just felt the need to take. All of them were done handheld because I wanted to travel light, shoot quickly and move on.

Comments of any sort are of course, most welcome.

 

[schon]

I'm no pro, but for night shots you should use a tripod to get clear photos... and I have to agree that this year's light-up is dull. :think:

 

[fWord]

I'm no pro, but for night shots you should use a tripod to get clear photos... and I have to agree that this year's light-up is dull. :think:

Thank you for your comment. In the past, I used to lug around a tripod for night shots. That was back in the days when I used a P&S and couldn't afford to raise the ISO any higher than 50.

But as you say, nothing beats the clarity of a tripod-shot photo...unless I develop hands as stable as a rock someday.

Wonder what happened to all the glitz and glamour that we saw in the past lightups...obviously, financial problems have gotten in the way.

 

[JHRfoo]

Hi,

Your shots look interesting to me. May I asked what exposure you used for your shots? What was your shutter speed and ISO?
Thanks

 

[fWord]

Hi,

Your shots look interesting to me. May I asked what exposure you used for your shots? What was your shutter speed and ISO?
Thanks

Thank you for your kind comment.

All the photos were taken handheld with the camera in Program Mode. The second, third and fourth shot were taken with a starlight filter (cross screen) fitted to the lens, hence the starry flare effect on some light sources.

The photos were all taken at ISO 800. Shutter speed was around 1/50 second down to 1/30 second. Aperture was open as wide as the lens allowed, and that might be anywhere from f/3.5 to f/5.0.

Exposure compensation was + 1/3 stop.

 

[S11loop]

yr shots with starlight filter looks abit messy to me , its a very creative filter but study yr composition carefully before apply this filter

overall yr ideas of using star filter is good

 

[fWord]

yr shots with starlight filter looks abit messy to me , its a very creative filter but study yr composition carefully before apply this filter

overall yr ideas of using star filter is good

Thanks for the advise. It was interesting to try the effect out, but some shots did become too dazzling. Good thing I chose this over a 6 or even 8 point starlight filter!

 

[Rashkae]

Actually, a 6 might have worked better.

 

[Youhong]

yr shots with starlight filter looks abit messy to me , its a very creative filter but study yr composition carefully before apply this filter

overall yr ideas of using star filter is good

I agree that it seem rather messy since there are many light sources... The starlight filter will be good only when there is a few or just one light source in your composition... I feel that ISO can set low and use long shutter speed with a tripod might be a good idea especially for those cameras that produce pic with high noise level at high ISO... One example is my Fujifilm Finepix S5500 digital camera...

 

[fWord]

Actually, a 6 might have worked better.

Initially, I was hoping to get a star-six from CP, but they ran out of it, and only had one cross-screen and a few star-eights left. But with so many light sources in such photos, I guess a flare that is less complex would be less glaring.

 

[fWord]

I agree that it seem rather messy since there are many light sources... The starlight filter will be good only when there is a few or just one light source in your composition... I feel that ISO can set low and use long shutter speed with a tripod might be a good idea especially for those cameras that produce pic with high noise level at high ISO... One example is my Fujifilm Finepix S5500 digital camera...

Thanks for the advice. Ordinarily, I would have used a tripod and gone for long exposure, if I were using a P&S camera. But with the advent of DSLRs that have low noise at high ISOs, I've gone for walkaround night photography. It is faster and more convenient, but the results are not so clean.

One thing I realized is that the starlight filter softens the overall image. A lot of the mist/ fog in the image was a result of that filter...I think.:dunno:

 

[bwilly]

good star effect with the filter.
but your pic seem to suffer from noise other than the blur.

#1 pic - can see some light, but the crowd totally black out, seem to lack the x'mas feeling.

 

[paxluv]

Headlights equals muy distracting.

If you don't mind, I'm going to play around with one of your photos a bit...

 

[paxluv]

Not very holiday-ish....

But I don't hate it And yes, my purpose was to make it hard to see.... and just focus in on the headlights... by the way... You people drive funky cars!

 

[fWord]

good star effect with the filter.
but your pic seem to suffer from noise other than the blur.

#1 pic - can see some light, but the crowd totally black out, seem to lack the x'mas feeling.

Thanks for the comment. It would have been good if the crowd was visible...perhaps I'll try a flash in the future, but the built-in flash isn't going to have enough power for too long a distance.

 

[fWord]

Not very holiday-ish....

But I don't hate it And yes, my purpose was to make it hard to see.... and just focus in on the headlights... by the way... You people drive funky cars!

Heheh...actually, the tighter crop seems to have worked well to remove a lot of dead space.

Indeed, there's lots of big and new cars on the road, but there are also plenty of drivers with an attitude problem. In Australia, I have seen the opposite: people driving humble, aged cars, and yet being much more friendly and courteous.