Photography

0

The Joys of Software Updates.....

Yes I broke one of the golden rules of maintaining a healthy system

"Never run a x.0 release of a software product in a production environment"

0

Night Photography

Photography at night can be rewarding and it can also be very frustrating! It involves a lot of experimentation, sleepless nights and tripping over things, (yes, I must remember to pack a flashlight into the kit bag....)
One of the first challenges in our modern world is getting away from light pollution from a whole host of sources, street lights, cars, mobile phones to name a few, as I'm currently living in the Welsh Valleys this isn't too much of an issue for me.

There are a number of items that I've found make the whole process of night photography easier, these are:-

• Tripod.
• Camera with long exposure setting, ideally a bulb setting.
• Cable shutter release.
• Lens with a large aperture, (small f-stop number).
• Watch with a second hand or stopwatch setting.
• Flashlight.

The biggest difference between photography at night and during the day is the length of exposure, this single fact is what make the extra items useful. The tripod, cable shutter release are used to keep the camera steady for the longer exposure times that would result in blurred images if they were not used. The watch makes keeping track of the time of the exposure possible for me, as more often than not I loose count somewhere during the exposure if counting elephants.
The basic process I follow is this:-

Setup the camera and compose the scene.

Set the focus to infinity, I normally take longer distance shots at night, not close ups or middle distance, this is partly as I've found it quite difficult to get good focus, so by going for the longer distance and infinity focus, I avoid this issue.

Set the aperture, I start with an aperture of f5.6, as I find gives a good starting point with not too shallow a depth of field, from here I can experiment.

Exposure length, this is the largest area of experimentation for me, as depending on the light available and what I'm photographing the exposures can vary greatly. For example taking pictures of stars on a night with a small moon, can call for exposures in excess of 30 minutes, while the same shot with a full moon can be less than 5 minutes. The digital camera has made this a lot easier, as results can be seen immediately and adjustments made.

Change the ISO? Another thing that can be changed is the ISO setting , (if available on the camera), I tend to set this to ISO 200 for night photography, the higher the ISO the more grain will be visible in the image, and the shorter the exposure, this gives another avenue and effect to get creative with.

Night photography for me is all about experimentation, starting with a base, and then tweaking the parameters to get a result I like, it make take several nights to get this result, but it is a rewarding experience, that I would recommend to anyone willing to give it a go.

0

Road Trip, Exeter

We took a short break last week to go to seem my Mum, and to get away from some of the day to day worries. Wow I'd forgotten that it doesn't rain every day everywhere, (it's good to get out of the valleys from time to time).

End result, 8 full memory cards of photographs, the next couple of weeks I will be processing, sorting and working on these, (including the shots of the British Firework Championships) I hope to have some previews up here soon, with gallery's to follow.