One curious thing that happens when I do long exposures at night is that the colours and pixels often merge into a sort of 'watercolour', as here.
Why is this? I don't know, but it might be due to my camera being a fairly low-resolution 6mp model with limited night sensitivity and giving a lot of 'noise' (which I try to remove in the editing), and I lighten the shadows a bit. However, there's no overt image 'overlay' or manipulation. Perhaps it's the long exposure – in this case 15 seconds.
Photography experts might have a better idea than me about what's going on. The result isn't unpleasing, though, so I'm not inclined to question it too closely. I feel like the gambler who bet on a horse called Heinz Varieties, on the grounds that 69 was his lucky number. The gambler was told by his friends that he was an idiot, but the horse won anyway.
Dave, ahem, that was precisely the joke!
Posted by: Andrew Denny | Sunday, 01 November 2009 at 08:24 PM
Never mind the technical stuff. I love the photographs! Keep on doing what you're doing!
Posted by: eeyore | Thursday, 19 February 2009 at 10:07 PM
is this on a high or low sensitivity? If you're using 1600 try 100 or 200 as well - obviously longer on the tripod, but that's fine, and compare the two results...
Posted by: Simon | Thursday, 19 February 2009 at 07:21 PM
LOL if it's Heinz varieties his lucky number would be 57 not 69 that is a completely different lucky number ;-)
As for you picture colour noise, it is mainly due to the fact that at low light you need a larger lens aperture to receive the little light that there is.
Posted by: Dave Baynham | Thursday, 19 February 2009 at 01:48 PM