Auckland at night

Inspired by the photowalk with Trey Ratcliff earlier this year a few of us headed out with cameras to grab a few shots early evening shots in the city.  We obviously couldn't avoid taking a few shots for HDR processing.  Hopefully Trey will be impressed with our efforts!

It was a 6pm meet at Burger King on Queen Street, next to the Borders Bookstore.  Only four of us managed to get there ... perhaps a Monday night wasn't the most convenient of times?  Nevertheless we had a great time.  I'm always fascinated with what fellow 'togs see that you may have missed.  Much to learn from fellow enthusiasts.

The first shot in this post is of the meeting place.  This is a five shot HDR image processed in Photomatix Pro.

The second shot is from just across Queen Street looking over towards the Borders bookstore to see a hint of Skytower.  I was quite surprised with the amount of colour in the city.  This shot is a single shot HDR image ... again processed in Photomatix Pro with a bit of a twiddle in Lightroom.

I took a tripod and used quite long exposures at a low ISO.  However, when moving between venues I detached the tripod, boosted the ISO up to 3200 or 6400, opened up the lens tried taking shots of people on the street.  I've converted these to black and white ... sometimes black and white seems more appropriate - and it also helps reduce chromatic noise :-)

First shot shows a couple of runners heading up Queen Street (some folk are masochists!), second shot has a couple friends enjoying an after work glass of wine, shot three is a University student checking her notes and shot four is of a couple of girls waiting for the lights to change  before crossing Queen Street.  What do you think?

There's a few more HDR shots in my Auckland HDR set on flickr. Check it out and let me know what you think.

I'll close this post with a couple of grainy hand held colour shots taken at a high ISO in an attempt to get a bit of atmosphere into the city night time shots. First shot looks towards the City's Town Hall, the second shot is looking down Albert Street. Comments, as always, are most welcome.