Just out of curiosity, and without going back to look, which image (A or B) was displayed on 6/60/09?

(You need to Login or Register to view media files and links) should dump you in slideshow mode. Select loop and hit play to toggle between the two looks. If that fails or gets confusing, (You need to Login or Register to view media files and links)

Since there is no actual "real" in this case:
Which one do you feel looks more "real" as in what you'd actually see if you were standing there when it was taken? Which way would you remember it?

I thought it was A, but I can't decide on most "real." -Tom

Can't say which was originally displayed, but B looks more "real" to me. Nice shot, by the way.

Long exposure / night shots are tricky to tone, especially with fires as a light source. If you can change white balance settings, try using "tungsten" mode to take night shots. It brings out the blues, and softens the warm glows from fires, sodium lights, etc. Not everyone likes it, but I've spent countless hours shooting under moonlight, it's always worked for me.

Some examples of my tungsten shots:

(You need to Login or Register to view media files and links)
(You need to Login or Register to view media files and links)
(You need to Login or Register to view media files and links)
(You need to Login or Register to view media files and links)

I was inspired to try it by one of my photographic heroes, who shoots tungsten slide film. With the slides, the added blue affect is quite dramatic, but with digital, it's just enough to balance everything out.

(You need to Login or Register to view media files and links)

Of course, shooting in tungsten mode doesn't eliminate the need for post-processing, but it makes toning a lot easier. In my opinion, it leaves you with more room to play around, so long as everything is properly exposed.

"B" looks more realistic to me.

A looks real...BUT I like B. What does that say about me?

different white balance settings?

I like the warmth of the B shot but in both shots I miss the crispness of the flame as in your 6/12/09 campfire shot.  I'm guessing this is the result of a longer exposure time.

terp

I like B.  I recognized that A was the original because of the distracting object in the foreground.

Now for the debate.  And as I'm getting into digital photography this is something that's going through my thoughts anyway.  My daughter and I have been enjoying doing some waterfall photography using filters to get slow shutter speeds.  My father grumps about our photos not being "real", and "not a moment in time".  I've also been experimenting with HDR the last couple of days.  For anyone who, like me a few days ago, doesn't know what HDR photography is here is a brief explanation- in photos with large differences in light it is impossible to take a single photo and correctly expose all areas.  For many years landscape photographers would use graduated neutral density filters for compositions with a straight line light/dark issue.  Actually, they still use ND filters and I'm thinking about ordering a couple. But there are programs out now that allow you to take three/ five shots or more on a tripod all at different exposures and the program then melds the best areas of all the shots into a photo in which all the areas are exposed properly.  My perception is that this is and will make for a rather large change in photography.  The photos do not look real at all yet I find them fascinating and beautiful.

So one has to ask the question of what is real?  No photography is real.  It's all a method of trying to capture the three dimensional world we see on a flat two dimensional surface.  And what we "see" is light and reflected light bouncing off objects in our world.  A photo is ink on paper (or pixels of light on a screen) attempting to recreate that scene.  So my father's argument over our photos is that the ink on the paper doesn't represent what he "sees" when he's at the waterfall.  True.  But, that doesn't mean it isn't "real".  It's just as real as the fast shutter speed photo that stops each drop of water in the air.  We don't see the waterfall that way either do we?  Well, I could go on with this but I suspect most of you lost interest several sentences back.

So, to sum up my thoughts.  I like B.  If your goal is to try to create an image that most represents what the scene looked like when you were there only you can make that call.  For the rest of us it doesn't matter at all what the scene looked like then because we weren't there.  All that matters to us is the ink on paper (or pixels on our screen).  I lean to the photography as art side.  I want the image to evoke the feelings of wilderness, bring back the smell of the smoke, the sounds of the crackling fire and wind working through the pine branches above.  If B does that for me better than A then why not?  When you were there the visual was only one of your senses taking in the moment.  If you can boost the visual a little to help folks extrapolate the rest a little better...

I think you should.

A looks green to me, B looks red. Since it's summer and under a pine, I'll go with A. Some balance between to two would be nice, warm up the A some.