Night out in Exeter

Some shots taken on a Newton Abbot Photographic Club night out to Exeter Quay. All taken with a Pentax K-5ii and K24mm f2.8 lens tripod mounted.
1. Dining out


2. More dining out


3. Contemplation


4. Footbridge


5. View downriver


6. Looking back


7. More dining out



Thanks for looking, all comments welcomed.

A lovely set with excellent exposures, beautiful grading and colour saturation. Wonder if my K-5 would allow me to achieve something similar.......

The K5 series has always been good at low light, give it a try

Agree with these comments - the only thing I would change is the cropping on a few - 1, 2, 5 & 6 have a little too much at the top or bottom, a little trimming down may improve the overall look - just my opinion, but they do have a good look and feel and Yes - the K5 series are well capable cameras

Thank you for your comments. As Chrism8 advised, Elleygreen, just take your camera out and give it a try. You'll quickly get the hang of what works and what doesn't.
Thanks for the cropping advice, LennyBloke, I'll give it a try - though I might be a bit reluctant to lose much of the reflections in 5 & 6!

Hi Mike - I often make several "versions" of an image and compare them to see what gives the look or impact I want, and for me (but it is of course only personal opinion and will differ from some others) cropping to suit the image rather than staying with standard format often works well.

I've taken the liberty of cropping your images - see what you think, I'm not saying they are better - just a different view aspect and removing some foreground and/or sky that may not (or may) add to the image...

As Lenny says cropping can make a big difference to images. But in the first two examples, I find his crop too tight making the images look cluttered which the original didn't. The second two I find the cropped versions an improvement.

He's definitely right about these things being personal opinion too!

I must admit I'm always a sucker for well taken blue hour shots. Hard to say why but I think no 2 is my overall favourite.

Thanks LennyBloke and Petrochemist for your further thoughts. I take LennyBloke's point about the amount of dead space at the top and, maybe, the bottom of some of my shots. I will try some judicious cropping but I'm tending to Petrochemist's view that LennyBloke has been a bit too enthusiastic. We'll see!

From a pictorial point of view. it makes me want to say...

"wish I was there, on the quayside, having a nice beer"

after that technicalities matter little, apart from the fact you chose the appropriate time to make the images, so keeping detail in the sky.