DC by Night

[jbtaylor]

Inspired by Sury's travel images and Sig's recent low light work, I decided to kill some time in DC while the wife attended a show. I used the RX1. Re familiarizing myself with the controls of this little beast was quite the challenge. Especially in the dark.

[sury]

JT,
Are they hand held? I like them all but the first one tad more.

[jbtaylor]

Tripod. It was windy so what you are seeing is motion blur, not camera shake.
The difficulty is that the monuments are lit so brightly that over exposure is a problem (Lincoln Memorial center left background in image 1). In addition, I no longer have access to Lightroom and my version of Capture One does not have a dodging and burning tool. Such is life.

[Fotogeorge]

The "Art of Photography" has a video on layering in Capture One. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vm2m2F-vevg

I think that layering will replace your need for dodging and burning tool.

[Fotogeorge]

Sury: I like your shots. Keeping the A-mount alive is a good thing.

[sury]

Tripod. It was windy so what you are seeing is motion blur, not camera shake.
The difficulty is that the monuments are lit so brightly that over exposure is a problem (Lincoln Memorial center left background in image 1). In addition, I no longer have access to Lightroom and my version of Capture One does not have a dodging and burning tool. Such is life.

I have had great success with bracketing and using Luminance HDR in the past. It has a bit steep learning curve.
http://qtpfsgui.sourceforge.net/
I bought a software called Machinery HDR to stack my images with great success.
Alternately you can try built in HDR/DRO option.

Sury

[sury]

Sury: I like your shots. Keeping the A-mount alive is a good thing.

Fotogeorge,
Thank you. Look forward to your contributions as well.

Sury

[jbtaylor]

Thank you both for the advice. It sucks that Lightroom has forced this choice.
The upside is that I get better from the beginning.
Time to get to work.
JT

[aster]

Neat captures, JBTaylor, especially considering they are all handheld and with a risk of overexposure.

Preferences, if I may: I like the symmetrical capture of the Washington Monument, the Obelisk (3rd shot) and the curve and the reflections on the marble surface in the 1st shot. The busy city lights just behind the arc of the flag poles are destructing and taking away from the intended good composition for a solemn look, in my opinion, but that probably was unavoidable.

Thanks for sharing,
Yildiz

[Fotogeorge]

Sury: I like your shots. Keeping the A-mount alive is a good thing.

Fotogeorge,
Thank you. Look forward to your contributions as well.

Sury

Now, that you asked, I thought I'd share my modest image collection with you at:

https://www.pbase.com/fotogeorge/profile

[sury]

Very impressive set of galleries you have Fotogeorge.
Love them. So far I saw Cars and Beaumont and very impressed.
54 more to go.

[smulnik]

JT,
The first one and the last one are my favorites. Sweeping curves always get me.

George,
I’m going to have to spend some time looking through your galleries. So far, so good!

Sig