Purple Sky

Yesterday morning i suddenly woke up at about 5am and strangely enough decided to have a look outside and i couldnt believe my eyes when i saw this...

http://img332.imageshack.us/img332/5061 ... 8051cq.jpg

It was amazing in that i have always wanted to take a good quality photo of that tree with some of the sky that we get here and when i saw that i couldnt resist seeing if my camera would cope with the light. Thankfully the quality isnt too bad considering it isnt really bright. I am pleased to have taken this shot.

Let me know what you all think.

I took another photo which is almost identicle which you can see here!

Just for the record, that is the view from my bedroom window.

Nice, although I'd probly shop out the power/cable lines.

To improve the quality a bit, just get the ISO to as low a number as it will go, and go for a longer shutter speed. This will help reduce some of the "noise" in the image. Set the camera to max image size at max quality (to lose some of the JPG compression artifacts) - shoot TIF or RAW if possible - and put it on a tripod. Then just use the timer to take the shot. That way, after you press the button, the camera's got a few seconds to settle down from the shake of your hands.

That should get you some nice clear shots

Thank you for the advice Axe.

To be honest i am uncertain how to change most of the settings you mentioned although i will have a good look into them.

With regards to the Tripod, i would have set mine up for the shot but to be honest i just woke up and was half asleep and just was kinda in awww at what i was seeing. It looked alot nicer than the photo, it was a richer red colour.

I agree that its a bit of a bummer having the power lines in the shot, i will have a shot at Photoshop when i get the time and post the results.

With some cameras you can't change those settings (ISO, exposure time, aperture, etc), but ahve a read through your camera's manual. More and more point-n-shoots these days are allowing you to change such features.

If nothing else, you should be able to force it to use a particular ISO (as opposed to "auto"). If you're shooting a particularly dark scene, and it's on auto, it'll usually choose ISO400 or 800 (or as high as the camera goes). You'll generally want ISO200 or lower (ISO100 or ISO64 if your camera has those modes), and it'll force the camera to use a longer exposure to get the shot.

As far as the colour, try using different white balance settings, again this is something you should be able to override, chances are your camera's currently set to "auto" (which is often wrong under tricky lighting conditions like these). Try setting it to Sunny or Cloudy to give a more realistic appearance. After all, even though not in full sunlight, the colours you're seeing are a trick of light projecting from the sun.

Once again thank you Axe. I have learned quite a bit from you today and i really appreciate this.

My camera is default at "Auto" for the ISO and to be honest i have never been tempted to find out about much of the settings and changing them. The highest ISO i can get is 400 on the camera...maybe not as good as some other cameras but its fine enough.

I will have a play about in the future. And i will be sure to upload better quality photos from this camera now that i know how to!

You actually want your ISO lower.

Lower ISO number means it needs a wider aperture or longer exposure length in order to get a nicely exposed scene.

The advantage of lower ISO shots is that you get less noise in the shot. Even if your camera did go higher than ISO400 (mine goes to ISO6400), you wouldn't want to shoot higher than that anyway really, unless your images are intended for print.

On-screen, shots faster than ISO400 (higher number) are generally pretty noisy. In print you don't see it so much, because what filled 3000x2000 pixels (or whatever) on-screen, only fills about 10"x6.66" on paper (@ 300DPI), so you really don't notice the noise so much at all (in fact, it can often give it more of a 35mm film-like appearance).

Images intended for the screen though, you ideally want that ISO number as low as possible.

Which camera is it that you have again?

Its a HP Photosmart R607 Digital Camera i have.

Something just to get me started although i am looking at getting something else in the near future thats a bit more professional.

You might want to have a look at the D70/D70s or the newly released (slightly cheaper) D50 by Nikon, or Canon's 300D and 350D.

All 5 of those bodies are great to get you started, although the D70/D70s are the best of that bunch (the D70s is basically a D70 with some minor fixes).

Here is just a modified version, without some of those cables and power lines:

http://www.guruimages.com/tmpimages/1/Purple.jpg

That is a good edit Burnt Raven! Thanks for that.

I have had a look at the Nikon D50 before and its definatly something i plan on purchasing soon. Just need to save the pennys

I have learned quite a bit from you Axe and i really appreciate that. Thank you!

i notice the word in photoshop for a layer setting called noise and now i see axe talking about it...waht is it really?