Shooting brightly lit things at night

I think it looks good with the brighter parts of the building overexposed, partly as it allows the foreground to be more visible: you can see the lines in the parking lot.

But also, it sort of reminds me of looking at actually buildings, which are brightly lit compared to the background.

With dark adapted vision, they will look very bright. The structure of the dome still comes through well.

I suppose one could use a graduated neutral density filter to reduce the top of the building compared to the rest and to the foreground.

But that might have an unnatural look.

I Like them.

Lincoln a bit over.

You might find this useful.

I have this book and it is an excellent reference.

https://www.amazon.com/Complete-Guide-Night-Low-Light-Photography/dp/0817450416/ref=sr_1_9?ie=UTF8&qid=1541092562&sr=8-9&keywords=Low+light+photography

You can get a great primer along with some useful advanced info.

I expect you might be a bit over exposed in the cases you mentioned.

Thanks. I just ordered a copy, "like new" condition, ebay, 3.99. There's a "newer" version of this book but the title now includes the word "digital". This version seems to be more about film...

I think it looks good with the brighter parts of the building overexposed, partly as it allows the foreground to be more visible: you can see the lines in the parking lot.

 

But also, it sort of reminds me of looking at actually buildings, which are brightly lit compared to the background.

With dark adapted vision, they will look very bright. The structure of the dome still comes through well.

 

I suppose one could use a graduated neutral density filter to reduce the top of the building compared to the rest and to the foreground.

But that might have an unnatural look.

Would you suggest maybe a slightly shorter exposure for this then? An aperture change?

Hate to keep dragging this out but I'd love to know what you guys with much more experience would do differently?

Thanks to all.

With the dynamic range of film it is a give and take proposition.

Shift between detail of light and dark areas to get what you prefer.

Bracketing shots of multiple exposure values will give you some idea of how the film will work under particular conditions.

After I wrote:

I think it looks good with the brighter parts of the building overexposed, partly as it allows the foreground to be more visible: you can see the lines in the parking lot.

Would you suggest maybe a slightly shorter exposure for this then? An aperture change?

 

Hate to keep dragging this out but I'd love to know what you guys with much more experience would do differently?

 

Thanks to all.

Since I will often have a DSLR with me when I am trying to do this with film, most likely I will also take the shot with that.

Then look at the LCD display for a quick idea of how the shot will come out.

Possibly also with the histogram, but probably not.

One of my favorite shots by my father when I was young, from his trip to Paris, is the Arc de Triomphe at night, taken from the middle of the street, (there is a small island where one can stand), time exposure so you see the streaks from headlights and taillights. That one is on slide film.

With the exposure latitude of negative film, especially color negative film, you can do some adjusting at print (or scan) time.

One could even, though I have not done it, is do some dodging to reduce the brightness of the building.

But if the building really is white, or light colored, it doesn't look so bad if it comes out white.

Some bracketing is also a good idea, if it isn't easy to get back to try again later.

(Especially for a trip to another country.)

Looking at your #3 reminds me of a neat film exercise.

A neat project for those scenes on film would be to do some double exposed full moon shots.....

Photography techniques: Making landscape-moon double exposures

Thought I'd pop back in here to add another more recent image... cropped, shot with the Hasselblad 500CM. Sadly I did not take time to record what I was doing, so I'm unsure about aperture and exposure time. Shot back in November 2018.