Capturing a building at night, that displays large neon logos.

[trevor_saint]

Hi all, I am using a canon EOS 10D.

 

I have been asked to capture some evening photos of a building

society as I have developed their web site in work. The building is

quite big, and has large neon like bright logo displays. I

attempted to capture this at night and failed. The manager even put

on the building lights to improve some of the lighting on the

building itself, which did lighten the scene a little. But again my

problem was the neon type glow coming from the logos.

 

I do want to capture this building at the very best I can but really

need some help and guidance on the subject. I always shoot in RAW

format as I am not 100% confident and like the ability to adjust

without affecting the quality to much.

 

I understand quite a bit about photography and exposures etc, but

always seem to find myself battling against the impossible.

 

The photo outcome was that the logos themselves were really over

exposed and the building very dark if seen. Please help me.

 

I think, in order to capture a better picture, if no one advises me

is to hit that time where I have some light as my aid, rather than

shooting in total darkness. Its just I have seen images before of

this nature and it�s always good to know how to better one self.

 

Thank you

 

Trevor Saint

[mark pav]

<i>"I think, in order to capture a better picture, if no one advises me is to hit that time where I have some light as my aid, rather than shooting in total darkness.</i><br><br>

 

That would have been my suggestion. If you have the patience you could set your tripod up, take a shot with a bit of ambient light still around and then, when it gets dark, take another and merge them on PS.

[anthony_m1]

If you were to meter the neon light and then meter the rest of the building I am sure you will have 2 dramatically different readings. I do a lot of night city scapes, but I dont mind blowing out the neon. I think you may have to get creative in photoshop with this one. Taking 2 images, one exposed for the neon and one exposed for the rest. Please post your results if you can. AJM

[aleksandar_kujucev1]

I assume that you are using a tripod and remote cord. Just make few shots of the same scene with different exposures. First, expose for the neon signs and then go for the correct exposure for the building in the next shot - or go the other way round :-)

In Photoshop you can stack those shots in different layers and play with blending (double click on a layer - hold alt and drag those markers apart to get gradual transparency in dark or light areas) or use eraser to remove overexposed neon signs and reveal correctly exposed ones in a layer beneath. Or combine both methods...

[johnrwoods]

It also sounds like you, perhaps, had too long of a shutter speed and it made the neon lights expand and get fuzzy? Therefore almost unreadable. You'll want to get as fast a shutter speed as you can, so try out like 1600 iso and maybe a shutter of 1/2(and faster) and see if it's bright enough to get away with. And bracket your shots too and play around. You're bound to get something that will work if you vary your shots enough.

[staticlag]

If you really wanted the shot to come out how you have envisioned it, hire some industrial lighting people to come out and light it.

[jim_simon5]

Try shooting at dusk, before it really gets dark. Actually, if you set up late afernoon and give yourself a few minutes between exposures you should find the one that works best for you. Never shot digital in this situation, but here's how it works with slides - take your shots just after dusk, while there's still some light in the sky. Meter directly from a patch of nothing but sky and let everything else fall where it wants to. The instant feedback of digital should help here. Don't know what the range of 10D is, but it can't be worse than slide film. Give it a try, let us know how it works. Jim

[simon_robinson2]

Trevor,

 

I've taken some shots of Queen Mary 2 at Night and I am pleased with the result. You do get some flare from bright lighting but that adds to the picture.

 

I shot at f22 for 20 seconds from a tripod some 400 metres from the subject with 24-70 lens.

 

I am assuming you want the picture to represent your ability with the camera. Always more rewarding that fixing it in Photoshop and these settings were the best for me.

 

Hope this helps

[chris_hawkins]

This is a classic problem and the answer is to shoot at dusk or dawn.

[trevor_saint]

Thank you for all your feedback on this topic. I have included some photos of the shoot for The Hanley. You can see how they came out, by looking in the Hanley folder for my portfolio section. Any feedback be it good or bad would be appreciated, as I am eagar to learn how to do things better.

 

Regards

 

Trevor Saint