With winter approaching I've been taking pictures after dark while walking Harry. All of these were hand-held, which was problematic under these lighting circumstances even without him yanking me one way or the other while he found a place to do his business. (And oh look! There's another dog!) Some day I need to go out without Harry and take a tripod. I tried a few with an on-camera strobe, but they were quite disappointing. The driveway and holiday lighting helped. #1, #3, and #4 are multiple sequential images shot HDR style, aligned and blended in Photoshop. #2 and #5 are single images.
All of them have been through Topaz's Photo AI for a bit of sharpening (mostly from camera movement--again, no tripod) and to reduce noise somewhat due to very high ISOs. Perhaps it's because I'm old and was very slow to transition from film to digital for serious work, but I was used to having grain if I looked closely enough. When making enlargements, I always focused with a grain magnifier, understanding that if the grain was sharp the print was as sharp as it could be. So when Photo AI takes out the noise, I put some of it back in by telling the software to restore most of the original detail. Images that are completely noise-free simply do not look natural to me.
Thank you for sharing your experience & images! I'm trying to sort out what you want to achieve: looking onto the images & headline & text.
What I like: the HDR is not detectable for me - This is highly appreciated! Dark areas are still dark as it's during night. The photos are looking basically natural!
High noise from high iso values can be reduced by post to an acceptable level. you added some after denoising for personal taste. OK, we all have our favorite way of doing & acceptable noise level.
What we can see in almost all photos: light sources are blown out while dark areas are still very, very dark or even black. The contrast at night inside civilization is terrible high. The bigger / brighter the light the more blown out & making photographing more difficult.
If night the right condition for you can be answered only by you - depending on your target you want to make happen.
For the technical circumstances I personally look for brighter surfaces to show something in an image while I try to keep light sources small. And I try to be out during blue hour. The remaining light helps me a lot to overcome the contrast issue.
I hope I could help a bit!
kind regards, dg9ncc
#1 Nighttime is the right time in #1 if you're walking Harry! Lol! It looks like you captured the yanking one way or the other. That's an idea - Night Walks with Harry: Long Exposure Light Paintings.
I like the composition, noise, and the point-of-interest centered/framed in shadow in #4.
It certainly has gotten dark fast lately here in PA!
I have to say I am no longer one that strives for sharpness in the type of work I do, and concentrate more on the feeling of the image.
I can, however, appreciate the need for sharpness in many genres.
In many ways I actually appreciate a bit of noise/grain in night shots as it adds to the mood (unless you strive for a pure documentary).
If you have an iPhone and like to play while walking Harry I can recommend the Spectre app (free for exposures up to 3 seconds). This allows long exposures while AI does an admirable job at minimizing camera shake.
FWIW - the app can also create interesting effects if shooting whilst in motion....