DSLR Photography Forum

Taken tonight during a misty light rain from inside my car.
Tripod was on the front passenger-side floor and I almost forgot to turn off the engine--the vibrations can ruin such a photo as I know from experience.
Note the Texas 'Lone Star' detail on the roadway supports denoting the single star on the State Flag, which reminds us that unlike the other 49 states Texas was once an independent Country and legally could be again should we so choose. This was agreed upon as a condition of our becoming a state of the USA.

Wow! Looks so good - so sharp and opure - wonderful light!

Nice

Nice lighting, don't know a lot about the US, but it is interesting about Texas being a country....

Sharon

I like the element of the repeating star in the image - very nice.

Beautiful work with lines Keith...
I admire your night pictures, they have always very nice light and color.

Thanks so much for the excellent comments.

I think that I now prefer a later exposure choice I made that night.
Night exposure values are very "forgiving"--there's no "Correct" exposure--instead it's more like artistic choices that nobody can argue with unless you completely sucked, but since digital camera meters aren't really designed to be accurate at night there is much guesswork, experience and voodoo involved.
Many times, a small increase in exposure (like from +0.7 to +1.0) can make the result much cleaner in the digital noise area and also give you colors that are more pleasing after using less post-processing.

The last thing you want to do is under-expose at night when you're after a nice colorful photo.
When you crank-up the levels in post-processing, you crank-up the noise.
I expose between +1 and +2EV according to my exposure meter at night, and the times I don't go that high I'm usually very sorry.
Keep in mind that any bright lights in the frame will throw your metering off by presenting a hot white point that the camera will select as your brightest value, throwing everything that really matters into a gloomy shadow zone.

Here is the 1 minute later and +0.3EV brighter and hopefully better version: