There's something that I don't understand here. It appears that you are trying to take a daylight picture by night-light or perhaps twilight, but I'll guess the former, by using a long exposure time. Why are you doing this? If you are shooting at night, the photo should look like nightime - darkness, beautiful shadows, stuff disappearing into obscurity, mystery. Otherwise, without dealing with the white balance you get this strange color cast, as mentioned by another poster above. And, you don't get the color that you would get in daylight. The color in this scene is not significant anyway. This would be better in B&W and darker, darker. Look up Brassai's Paris at Night to see what night shots are supposed to look like. Or, tell me what your intent is that justifies this treatment.
Brassai Link
OK fair enough. I have it darker too. I braketed the shots from black to over exposed to see what they all looked like.
No, it was taken in total dark, except for the lights. The reason the sky looks like it does, apart from exposure, is because of the marine layer (low clouds) that we get here 90% of the time at night. The lights bounce off of the low clouds giving the sky that strange, sureeal look.
Here as my thinking on the subject: If I do the traditional thing where you get black black and dark fades, the colors go away, like you said, which is ok if you like that, and I do like it.
On the other hand, if I expose it like it is, I get this surreal color cast to the sky and water and the colors. I've never seen a nightshot exposed like that, and when I saw it the first time, I was like, "Wow, that looks tough." To me, the water looks like brushed green steel, and the colors have a sort of wet, dense unreal look to them, while being of course very real. The color of the sky, too, and the overall lighting to me is the same effect, kinda like the whole thing was arranged and shot in a studio with strange lighting.
At one point I was thinking the same thing as you that "Hey, the black needs to be black and the real color casts need to normal. "
So I took them with a more traditional exposure, but the picture just kinda went flat. It just didn't have that "in your face POP" to it, although I did like them.
The other thing I did last night was use the levels in PS to take out the strange color cast, kinda a magenta of sorts in the sky and water, etc., and it looks good to me like that also. So there are three ways I liked it--traditionally exposed, with a more real color cast using levels, and the way it is now.
The way it is now is just different, and it was, to me, a pleasant difference. It does grab you though, right? I mean it makes you think, but hopefully not in a bad way.
If you want me to post it with the color cast more normal using levels, let me know. Eventhing is the same, but the true colors are more seemily true. I do like it like that also. I'm kinda at a loss as to which I like better, but the way it is now is to me different in a unique way.
Last, with a long exposure, I've found that the water, as it moves around for 15 seconds, has this really nice smooth steel like sheen to it that I don't get below 13 seconds. Now that you have me thinking about it, I may go back and shoot it at 15 seconds with a smaller aperture, like F3-4x or so to get a nice traditional black nightshot. That should still give a nice smooth look to the water and lights in the water. That may look even better. I'll definitely try it.
All in all an excellent point that got me thinking once again about different exposures. So anyway, Russell, what do you think about the exposure now that you have heard my explanation for the brightness and color? Is it just wrong no matter what, or am I maybe on to something creative in trying this new approach to a night shot?
