Found a decent spot to shoot LA rush hour recently. I'm a rank amateur at this (literally my first time trying this) so I tackled it this way:
Tripod, sandbag, all that
Manual mode
5D3 + Naked 24-70 f/4L IS just with a hood on for stray near-the-tripod ambient lighting
Single shot - did not composite for HDR
LiveView 10x for manual focusing
AWB (but I was shooting RAW anyway)
Stopped the lens down to about f/11 for interesting sunstars from the street lights (just as a starting point)
Gunned for about a 30s shutter and adjusted the aperture/shutter slightly to get a 0 EV to -1 EV exposure
Forgot to set mirror lockup -- I presume that was a bad call?
Long exposure noise reduction was OFF -- also a bad call, or does that just affect JPEGs?
Set my histo to not go full back, so ETTL in this case?
Best of the bunch is attached at 50% size. Rough editing in ACR only -- I haven't killed off the helicopters yet or tried to punch up the sky. I was arm-wrestling with the highlights in ACR and it's super touchy -- rein in highlights too much and it's a horrifically cliched 'HDR gone wrong' shot, but do it too little and you just have a glowing white/red river through a sea of near black.
Looking for any technical tips, obvious errors in my approach, etc.
- A
Tripod, sandbag, all that
Manual mode
5D3 + Naked 24-70 f/4L IS just with a hood on for stray near-the-tripod ambient lighting
Single shot - did not composite for HDR
LiveView 10x for manual focusing
AWB (but I was shooting RAW anyway)
Stopped the lens down to about f/11 for interesting sunstars from the street lights (just as a starting point)
Gunned for about a 30s shutter and adjusted the aperture/shutter slightly to get a 0 EV to -1 EV exposure
Forgot to set mirror lockup -- I presume that was a bad call?
Long exposure noise reduction was OFF -- also a bad call, or does that just affect JPEGs?
Set my histo to not go full back, so ETTL in this case?
Best of the bunch is attached at 50% size. Rough editing in ACR only -- I haven't killed off the helicopters yet or tried to punch up the sky. I was arm-wrestling with the highlights in ACR and it's super touchy -- rein in highlights too much and it's a horrifically cliched 'HDR gone wrong' shot, but do it too little and you just have a glowing white/red river through a sea of near black.
Looking for any technical tips, obvious errors in my approach, etc.
- A