Hello everyone,
This is my first post to this group and my first attempt to do a night time star effect. The subject is my local bowling club and they just had new lights installed so I thought it would be a good excuse to attempt some long exposure and see if I could get a star effect. The F stop on my lens was F22 and I was shooting with a Panasonic Lumix GH4 and my RAW file was set to 16:9 not 4:3.
What I would like to know is:
Are lens flares perceived as a bad thing in a shot like this and how would I avoid them?
How should I edit this shot? This is "as shot" apart from a small amount of cropping.
I have noticed if I reduce the exposure by a couple of stops in Photoshop then the stars because sharper but obviously the rest of the image darkens up too. I can do the same with the highlights slider.
Anyway, looking forward to your feedback and some helpful pointers and also to having a good scroll through everyone else's images for inspiration.
Many thanks,
Anna
Star Effects from Bowling Green Lighting
As for if the lens flares, I think in general, people don't like them. However, if you can utilize them in a style without being a distraction, it could work out.
Regarding darkening the stars, you can use a local brush tool to darken the stars without making the rest of the image darker.
For me, the Star Effect is something that can be used to enhance a subject, but not really as the main subject itself. This goes for a lot of things, like light streaks, sunsets, clouds, to name a few. I think if you could find an interesting subject that incorporates the effect without overshadowing the subject, they would be OK. They keys to any good photo are an interesting subject and composition.
Asking "how should I edit this photo?" is like asking "what should I put on my pizza?", everyone's going to give you a different answer. Just play around with it, and find what you like best, then ask for feedback.
I'm not sure if that really addresses your questions. Let me know if it did or not, haha.
I found one by JassTech lighting which was taken to promote their lights...I'm going to rethink my composition I think. I do want the lights to be the main focus.
I think this makes a good promotional shot, because it shows the lights in action. You can see how well lit everything is because of the lights. I think if you can get a higher elevation for your shot, you can get something similar. The problem with being at ground level is that the poles are tall, so you have to get so far away that the things being illuminated are small and it doesn't look quite as bright.
It's also possible they used a special filter for the star effect, so they aren't too big.
Thanks Jordan. Valuable feedback. The lights are the main subject. Maybe I'll have to have a look at how sporting light manufacturers promote their lights and rethink this shot.