Have you ever had a moment where you look at a picture on the tiny screen of your camera and thought, “Gee, this is such a perfect picture.” Then, when you blow the picture up on your desktop, you’re like, “What in the world!”
I had about a thousand of these moments on the morning of my second day of my trip to Chicago. I remember I was super excited as I inserted the SD card into my laptop, tapping my fingers impatiently on the desk. I couldn’t wait to see what incredible nightlight I captured.
And then, the pictures came up and all my excitement immediately drained away, in its place was disappointment. I couldn’t believe it. Almost every single picture was blurry and out of focus. I tried to fix it with a variety of photo editing software but nothing worked, if not, I might have made it worse.
I thought it was because my old camera didn’t have enough megapixel. So I tried to take night pictures with my new camera last Friday at the Christmas party, not much better. My new camera was 20.2 megapixels and the old camera was 7.2 megapixels. Perhaps, I need a tripod to take a steady night shot. I don’t know. I’m glad for this photo challenge because it gives me a chance to share my outtakes. I deleted a lot of them and these are the ones I thought it’s okay. I hope you’ll enjoy them.
P.S. I wasn’t even planning on sharing them. I was going to keep them locked up forever in my hard drive but, since I want to complete the pictures collection from my trip which you can view here…
This is Another Story 
what camera are you using?
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My old camera was a 7.2 megapixels fuji point and shoot camera. It takes sucky night pictures.
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Tripod is required to take any night photos. I had some experience in taking night photos. During last Lunar New Year at my hometown, Xi’an, China, I took some photo of lantern displays. I remember I used manual mode, L03 ISO, f15 – 16, the time of exposure was around 15 – 20 seconds. In this way I got pretty decent depth of field. Here is the selection of the photos at the lantern display: http://www.shutterstock.com/cat.mhtml?gallery_id=3114920&page=1&inline=319884092. I will again be back to my hometown for the upcoming lunar new year, taking night photos should be part of the object in this trip.
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And now I know, learn something new everyday. 🙂
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Not sure if this helpful but has many tools to work with, who knows, may come in handy with something.
http://www190.lunapic.com/editor/?action=load
https://pixlr.com/
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I have pixlr, it didn’t work. It made the image look weird and unnatural. I will have to try the first one. Thank you for the suggestion.
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I don’t believe any editing tools can correct out of focus. Those tools are only for the adjustments in light, noise, saturation, vibrance or fringes, etc.. For any photos out of focus, re – capture is the only solution.
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And that is the worst part about out of focus photos since something may be just a one-time deal.
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That is right, so we have to get well prepared prior to any activities in photography.
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If I have one advice, it is to try and clean your lens while shooting at night with bright street-lamps. You won’t get as many streaks of light then! And yes, the key to good night shots is a tripod, and experimenting with ISO and Shutter Speed until you hit the sweet spot.
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I can experiment with the ISO but unfortunately, I can’t experiment with the shutter speed (downside of point and shoot cameras). I will have to invest in a tripod someday. Thanks for reading and the advice.
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Nice photos Yinglan!
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Thanks.
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Not all great pictures have to be sharply focused.., I have learnt it from my partner Kent Johnson who is a photographer himself.
The one at the bottom right has nice city lights, it looks lively the way it is!
Vivienne X
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Thanks, you make me feel better. 🙂
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