When it isn't possible to get the perspective as you like it, you can always shoot wider and use LR vertical distortion correction before cropping it back to what you saw.

Here's something else to think about; any time you are photographing any kind of a building, (especially with a WA lens, it's VERY important that the camera (and tripod) is on the same level as the house / building, whatever; if you get the lens axis the slightest bit "up", the perspective will be distorted, and the ends (or sides) of the house will be wider at the bottom, and sloping in at the top, all of which will ruin the shot, even if your exposure is "right on".

I recently ran into the same problem one night, and I had only taken my 12-24 F 4 WA with me; Needless to say, the resulting photos were terrible ! I returned the following night, mounted my 80-200 /f2.8, and re-shot the pictures from about 100 to 150 yards away, and this time everything was nice and straight, the image was composed much better, and the pictures were about 100 times better !

If I get a chance before the lights come down. I'm going to go back again and this time try it with my MF 35mm PC lens; ( I haven't used the thing since I quit shooting Fuji Velvia with my F 5 ); (should be "fun" experimenting with the D SLR !)

Leave it to the last days of the year to try something new.
Not my thing and never don't this type of work before, but I think it turned out.

Hey guys, looks like you had a great time!

You may have started a new trend - shots of meet-ups between members.

Ohh and before I forget we were getting sand blasted as well. It took me a good hour just to clean my tripod legs from all the sand. But then again I'm just a neat freak and everything must function as if it come off the factory floor. But here is a shoot, when viewed at full rez,.. for you all to see what I'm talking about.

Ok so lets get one thing straight out of the way the owner of the Hasselblad was a noob. He had no idea how to use it but had the funds in his life to buy it. The body to me was brand new, given that the strap of that comes with looked like it was just put on. Second who on earth take a Hasselblad to a shoot on the beach where: 1) the action is moving very fast, hence the birds, and 2) you don't knw how to read your memory capacity in order to make sure you have enough storage to take the shoots you seek. Moreover, I know I'm a very trust worthy individual to be handed a $40K plus worth of gear, but the owner did not even bother telling me how to go about using the setting on the camera...it was is if he himself was using it in Auto....auto...I mean come on. Never the less, It was fun for the short time I has the body in my hand to play with, I must admit, the shutter sound of the uni is quite louder than I would have expected. Not sure if I got the shot on his Hasselblad I quickly pulled up my D4 /w the 70-200 2.8 and took the shoot below.

In addition here are some of the shoot of Ironheart and I took while at the beach.

Bland--nice shot. Please keep posting results.

Without question my photography skills have jumped 1000 fold from where they were just 12 months ago. Thank you all for helping me along the way with your feed backs as well as your continues contribution to the forums in how many of you go about taking pictures. Here is mine for 2012

This would probably be my favourite as it stands out the most from my shots from 2012.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TgLiKK3fumA

This is impossible so Ill just grab one off my fbook

While Probably not my fave I do really like the way this one came out...

Thanks everyone for your help. I lowered the speed trying to get my autoiso to 100 but could get it to only 400 on most of the shots. For some reason this one fired off at 1100, didn't know it till now. I didn't try the bracket and ETTR but will this week, had too much stuff going on around me to concentrate. Thanks again everyone for your help.

I have been here for a short time in 2012. During that period I have learned so much from the forum in general and studying Exif data. I do also want to thank those who have viewed my snaps and commented both positive and otherwise. How can one progress if all they receive are handshakes. I also find it interesting to loking at those each has selected and check to see if i put them on my favorite list...so far pretty amazing. My favorite has to be this post. And to be honest, before I got home and really looked at the image did I realize that I did get the shot.

Happy Holidays to All!

Bland said:
Thanks everyone, looking forward to trying out ETTR this evening.

The point isn't taken - you won't have the chance to ETTR with this kind of photography. Forget being able to over expose without blowing the highlights in night photography including lights.

I have a feeling you will be blowing all highlights ( and they don't come back in post process ) for the sake of trying ETTR.

All you have to do is to NOT blow highlights as that is what the camera will try to do. Once you stay below the blowing level, you have the best possible exposure and believe me it will not need darkening !

I remember my first compact camera came with a 16mb SD card and I quickly bought a 64mb SD card. It was a 3.2mp Nikon Coolpix E3700.

If I used it on the D40, in RAW it would barely take 4 photos I think. And now cameras easily exceed 64mb with RAW files.

Wow CoastalConn!

I haven't had much of a chance to shoot too much this year. But I did do some macro shooting and this was my favorite shot.

Nikon D40 at F/11 at 1/320th on the 105mm macro.

The depth of field was an issue because the leaf was not flat, but it reminds me of some of the shots that NASA makes of riverbeds from low earth orbit.

I like this image due to colour and narrow depth of field. This woodpecker was more interested in finding food than worrying about people, so I was able to get rather close.

If at all possible, bracket like crazy in BIG steps (not tiny 1/3 steps). Go manual exposure and experiment. The ETTR technique is nice; but as soon as you have extreme brightness variations as with bright little lights at night you have to find a way to deal with blown-out highlights. I usually shoot one exposure to lift the dark areas out of complete darkness (that's the overexposed image) and one image for the lights (underexposed to get rid of the blown-out spots), and then combine them with semi-HDR techniques in Photoshop.
What also works (and it has already been mentioned), is to avoid pitch black nights. Either shoot a little earlier or at an overcast night, or add a little fill light.

Thanks everyone, looking forward to trying out ETTR this evening.

One note about ETTR is that you have to post process. The image is intentionally too bright and you will want (need) to darken.

OK, I see the confusion. What I should have said is expose MORE to the right. In other words, if you set your camera to aperture priority and let it take the photo, you would get something which looked almost like daylight. If you add a couple of stops of -ve exposure compensation in you would get something still lighter than what you want, but when darkened down would be noise and banding free. If you take a dark picture and brighten it, you will get horrible noise and banding.

Hopefully you are not going straight out tonight to a shoot where you have to get good shots straight off the bat so set your LCD to show the histogram and shoot some pics to get the idea. The best stars are at the smaller apertures, but they are the longest exposures which your scenes may not be good for so it will all be a compromise, but that is the great thing about digital isn't it - instant learning! The first time I did fireworks I asked here and got enough info to realise that the aperture only really affects the sky colour and the shutter speed can be used on bulb to get just the right amount of action in each frame. That first fireworks shoot was a success and I sold all the shots I took - all 100 of 'em!

Sorry Bland, it is as Godless said. The idea is in this instance that boosting exposure up causes colour banding and bad noise problems whereas darkening doesn't so in other words, take a few shots with the histogram to the right on its axis.

Bland: this may help => http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exposing_to_the_right

spraynpray said:
Don't forget what I said about ETTR and darken in post though. once you realise that the lights are always burnt out, it is just a case of playing with the exposure to get the effect you desire.

I am not sure if Exposing To The Right is a choice here as it is a technique you intentionally over expose all the way till just under highlights are blown. ( and then correct by darkening it ). Something one might try doing in low contrast/even light/over lit daytime scenes that does not require the full dynamic range of your DSLR.

In a case of Xmas lights at night, you have to reach for just below the blowing limit ANYWAYS as the rest of the scene will be totally dark and you would want to get as many details from it as possible ( dynamic range being not enough )... In other words, maximum exposure below blowing highlights is what you would do anyway.

Bland said:
Thanks, I'll take a tripod and besure to bracket. I'm not sure what ETTR is.

Exposure To The Right. I hate abbreviations just because of this kind of thing.