Night Photography

nathanm · « **on:** 19 Oct 2007, 03:20 pm »

I had some unexpected success last night doing some night shots. My camera is a little retarded in that even the "Bulb" mode doesn't really hold the shutter open indefinitely, it just does a long exposure for as long as it feels like. Hmm. But it does have a multiple-exposure mode which at first glance is a ridiculous function in the age of Photoshop, however in this case I used it to make a 60 second shot from two 30's.

I'm really amazed at how much compacted shadow detail you can dig out of these digital sensors. Stuff looks completely gone in the shadows, but you yank the curve and stuff appears. Not even crappy and posterized like you'd expect, but actual reasonable detail. The tree foliage in this shot is a masked off extreme curve. I shot two of the church because the lighting is so spotty on there. I think they elected to illuminate the bit that you can see from a distance. I tried the Merge to HDR trick but it wasn't necessary. I just blended in some underexposed highlights with layer opacity.

JohnR · « **Reply #1 on:** 21 Oct 2007, 01:40 pm »

The church shot is very cool. So the tree would have been very dark in the original shot? Why did you take two of the church?

nathanm · « **Reply #2 on:** 21 Oct 2007, 03:56 pm »

One for the shadows and one for the highlights to even out the light difference. The first shot was mostly okay, but the top of the steeple was blown out.

The tree in the first shot is the same in the final which is why I'm amazed you can sometimes get something from nothing!

AdamM · « **Reply #3 on:** 21 Oct 2007, 09:29 pm »

Gotta love the night shots!
Nathan, especially digging your water tower one with the stars and that beautiful blue/black gradient

AdamM · « **Reply #4 on:** 21 Oct 2007, 09:36 pm »

A really handy thing for night shooting: Shoot RAW!

One more idea: If you want to keep the twinkles consistent between exposures, adjust exposure time not aperture. Those star effects from the lights are diffraction artifacts from the aperture blades. Adjusting the aperture in any way will change the position and shape of them (fun to experiment). Shooting wide open will remove them, but the decreased lens performance in contrast, flare and corner sharpness will probably be undesirable.

nathanm · « **Reply #5 on:** 21 Oct 2007, 11:55 pm »

I only shoot RAW with my camera once I discovered that the JPEGs had mandatory noise reduction applied, which looks really bad. Write speed is a little slow then, but I don't shoot action stuff.

What is the guy holding in the first pic? I love the skyscraper in the fog, very nice!

Here's two more:

Some blown out highlights, but not too bad.

I liked the color contrast of this area so I made a cropped version. The long exposure made the lake water look nice and velvety.

AdamM · « **Reply #6 on:** 22 Oct 2007, 08:07 am »

Nathan, i dig the colours so many of your images have. Really refined colour palettes. Nice work.

That guy is holding a lit birthday cake. It doesn't quite read that way, but it's the best we could pull off. Not an easy subject!

Yeah, RAW is slower, but you get all that exposure information - two stops either way! - and aren't married to the white balance at exposure time. Major benefits on both fronts.

I recently splurged and got a Gitzo basalt fiber tripod. So very light and strong. Absolutely love it. Highly recommended.

nathanm · « **Reply #7 on:** 22 Oct 2007, 03:04 pm »

Thanks for the compliment! Here's more of my stuff: http://www.flickr.com/photos/nathanmarciniak/sets/

So is that some kind of commercial image or is it just for fun? I hope the guy's coat didn't catch fire after the shot was taken!

mfsoa · « **Reply #8 on:** 22 Oct 2007, 04:16 pm »

Ahhh, now that I see your self-portraits, that explains much about your off-the-wall posts!!

My wife and I really enjoy your photos, and whenever I show them to her she says "I want to buy one..."

Do you ever make/sell these beasties?

Thanks

-Mike

nathanm · « **Reply #9 on:** 22 Oct 2007, 05:12 pm »

Wants to buy one? Why that's music to my ears! Hey you're in luck, as you can do just that on my ImageKind site. Yes, shameless shilling. The moderator of this circle ought to reprimand me for this crass commercialism and take drastic action!

But first, a quick URL before he notices:

http://www.imagekind.com/MemberProfile.aspx?MID=9a8abc2a-549f-4612-8a35-cf163a981333

Of course, just the most print-friendly stuff goes there. (the files you upload to IK are full-rez whereas Flickr's are scaled down) Let me know if there's something on Flickr that you'd want. Thanks!

Russell Dawkins · « **Reply #10 on:** 22 Oct 2007, 07:02 pm »

Nathan - beautiful photos, great graphics, hilarious titles and "artist's descriptions".

Keep working on the female portraits, though. They seem to be to a different standard in some way.

The difference between your hay bale photos and "featured artist" Iris Greenwell is telling, however. No contest, and a good object lesson in framing and composition, not to speak of depth of field choices.

Great stuff.

AdamM · « **Reply #11 on:** 22 Oct 2007, 09:24 pm »

Quote from: nathanm on 22 Oct 2007, 03:04 pm

Thanks for the compliment! Here's more of my stuff: http://www.flickr.com/photos/nathanmarciniak/sets/

So is that some kind of commercial image or is it just for fun? I hope the guy's coat didn't catch fire after the shot was taken!

Great portfolio. The self portraits collection is very creative (and creepy at times!)

That burning birthday cake shot was part of a collection, for a small show called 'six weeks six photos'. It centered around 6 shots, one each weekend, with the show being held on the last day. Here's a few other shots from it:

brj · « **Reply #12 on:** 23 Oct 2007, 12:32 am »

Quote from: AdamM

I recently splurged and got a Gitzo basalt fiber tripod. So very light and strong. Absolutely love it. Highly recommended.

Just out of curiosity, which series, and what head do you use with it? They seem to be the reference for tripods, but I've never been able to "splurge" quite that much for one...

Zero · « **Reply #13 on:** 23 Oct 2007, 12:37 am »

Sheesh, I'd love to sit down with one of you one day - and just learn.

I'm no photographer - just a point and shooter using a 4-5 year old Sony digital. My speaker portfolio shots turn out alright sometimes (as seen in my gallery linked below)

AdamM · « **Reply #14 on:** 23 Oct 2007, 10:21 pm »

Quote from: brj on 23 Oct 2007, 12:32 am

Quote from: AdamM
I recently splurged and got a Gitzo basalt fiber tripod. So very light and strong. Absolutely love it. Highly recommended.

Just out of curiosity, which series, and what head do you use with it? They seem to be the reference for tripods, but I've never been able to "splurge" quite that much for one...

Hey brj,

I use two different heads with the Gitzo. One weird old manfrotto thing. Separate knobs for tightening each axis. Its slow to use but extremely light, so i use that when hiking / packing the tripod around. That Gitzo is soooo light, it makes carrying it around so much less of an effort.

The other head i use on it is a Linhof ball head. I love that thing, so velvety smooth and fast, but it is a bit heavy..

I can't recall which model of Gitzo it is, but i'll check. One of the smaller/medium ones. 3 section leg.

A buddy of mine picked up a carbon fiber tripod off ebay. Super cheap and it was surprisingly decent for the price. I think it was a 'Benro' brand... Worth a look, perhaps. It was no Gitzo... but significantly cheaper and very useable.

Good luck!
/A

Levi · « **Reply #15 on:** 24 Oct 2007, 01:42 pm »

I am no pro.

I took this night picture last spring while touring Europe.

Levi · « **Reply #16 on:** 24 Oct 2007, 01:43 pm »

Here is the view from the top of the tower.

8thnerve · « **Reply #17 on:** 24 Nov 2007, 05:53 pm »

Lens: 18 mm | Aperture: f 3.5 | Shutter: 9 sec | ISO: 100

Nikon D80, Nikkor 18-135mm 3.5-5.6

This shot was steadied on a railing for the nice long 9 sec exposure. At Florabama on the Florida Alabama border.

JohnR · « **Reply #18 on:** 26 Nov 2007, 12:40 am »

Nice, Nathan

So there really is a town called Florabama? Heh

8thnerve · « **Reply #19 on:** 26 Nov 2007, 05:00 pm »

Quote from: JohnR on 26 Nov 2007, 12:40 am

Nice, Nathan

So there really is a town called Florabama? Heh

It's actually a bar, but it might as well be a town...