Venus at twilight by the reservoir by chucklestoself, on Flickr
This shot was taken at approximately 8pm just at twilight and lower pierce reservoir. I saw the bright planet and knew I wanted to take a photo of it. I chose the pavilion as a complimentary subject of the photo and moved around the reservoir until i had the pavilion against the sky (rather than the surrounding trees). Deciding the composition after that was easy, portrait - to include the planet and enough space for the pavilion and it's reflection to rest on.
The shot was taken with my friend's Canon 550D, EF-S 18-135mm, f4, 18mm, ISO-100, 30 seconds. It also had a CPL attached.
After post-processing I realised there were other white stars/planets/whatever that showed up but it was quite faint. No crop was done, but the picture was darkened a little to bring out the blue in the sky. I think it would've been possible to catch other stars in the photo as the sky space allowed for it.
Is there a technique to shoot the fainter stars but at twilight too? (Without overexposure but also capturing the twilight sky)
I also realised the CPL had made light distortions on the planet itself, with a greenish edge on the right and a redish edge on the left on Venus. Should the CPL even be attached on?
After this shot, I realised why Venus is called the evening star, it is absolutely beautiful and this photo just sums up the whole serenity of the park.
Just want to know a little critique and advice to improve the photo.