Thanks to the digital camera we can now take shots and review results right on the spot. Gone are the days of trial and error of buying many rolls of film and hoping that your images came out good. Can you imagine spending $8 dollars on a roll of 32 shots of film, and then having to go to the store and get them developed for another $10-15. When we look back on that, it’s almost ridiculous. If you were shooting anything at all you’d always pray that your shots came out ok, they weren’t blurry or overexposed etc
We are so spoiled these days and I’m not complaining. Reviewing your shots right as you take them helps anyone become a good photographer. Gone are the days of writing down what focal length, exposure times etc, now you can just pop them on your computer, right click, properties and see everything about the image you took from the camera settings info.
Things just seem to come alive at night. Colors just pop out at you everywhere. The night time can be a very fun time to shoot. You might have tried it before and the results might not have been so good. There are a few tricks to doing night photography. I’ll teach you what I know from experience.
You don’t need super expensive gear to shoot like a pro at night, if you plan it right. Motion shots at night require a low aperture lens (1.4 1.8, 2.8 etc). If your shooting landscapes and non moving objects you just need a good tripod.
Tripods
Tripods come in many different sizes. I’ve bought them all from small cute handheld ones to pretty hefty ones. I’ve bought a few from Best Buy for $30, the $50, etc and they don’t seem to last long. What can happen to a tripod? Well the legs can break off. Or your camera falls over and you say I’ll never use that one again. If your going to get serious about night photography I suggest buying a decent tripod from a real camera store. Something made in Carbon Fiber so it’s lightweight. When your hobby starts to become an obsession and you start carrying around 30 pounds of gear with you a light weight tripod makes a huge difference. I feel the tripod is one of the more important things for landscape night photography. Get something that won’t fall over so easy, lightweight yet stable in the wind. Trust me you’ll find yourself in very windy places.
Camera Triggers
Camera Triggers are helpful but not required. If you don’t have one then be very careful when you push that shutter button down. Or you can set your camera to take the shot a few seconds after you hit the button. You’ll have to read the manual on how to set that up. It’s easy.
Lenses
If you plan on printing out poster sized images then you might want to buy a more expensive lens, but if your just going to put them on the web or print smaller ones like 16×20 then most lenses will work. I shot the Bay Bridge here with a $75 canon lens. I was even shooting other subjects with the really cheap kit lens from my Canon 20D and getting nice results. The key is to use a tripod so nothing comes out blurry.
Taking The Shot
I’m going to tell you to do the opposite of everything you ever learned for doing night photography. Don’t worry. Lets find a place to shoot. Treasure Island is beautiful at night. This was taken at about 7PM in January. When shooting night photography landscapes it’s nice to have everything in focus.
How do yo do that? We are going to use manual mode. Set your aperture up to F8, this will make it so everything in your shot is in focus. Your probably thinking won’t everything be really dark? Yes. Now set your ISO to 100. If you bump up the ISO like you normally would do then your shot is going to be really fuzzy and grainy. We want a nice clean shot so set your ISO as low as possible. Now set your camera to do a 5 second exposure. Not 5, but 5 seconds!
Shoot and review. If your shot is too dark, set it for 10, then 15, 20, 25, 30, and even try 1 minute or longer if you like. It’s digital and you can delete on the spot.
My bay bridge picture here is shot at the following:
50mm, ISO 100, F8, 30 second exposure.
There is no photoshop here. This picture is straight from the camera.
The Golden Gate was shot as follows:
33mm, ISO 100, F4.5, 5 second exposure.
No comments:
Post a Comment